Centre asks Maharashtra if it needs Shakti Bill new despite new criminal laws

Mumbai: After multiple rounds of back-and-forth with the Centre over the last two years, the Maharashtra government is set to push for the implementation of the Shakti Criminal Laws (Maharashtra Amendment Bill), which includes stringent punishments for crimes against women, including the death penalty.
This assumes significance in the wake of statewide protests this week against the alleged sexual assault of two four-year-old girls at a Badlapur school. The Opposition has been demanding the implementation of the Bill, which was passed unanimously by the Maharashtra legislature in December 2021.
The Bill was sent to the president of India for approval two years ago. However, it still hasn’t been implemented as the Centre had expressed reservations about certain provisions in the law and raised multiple queries in the last two years. The Maharashtra government replied to all the queries, only to receive new communication three weeks ago that questioned the need for the Shakti Act after the introduction of the three new criminal laws in July.
The three laws—Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and Bharatiya Sakshaya Act (BSA)—replaced the British-era Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act, respectively.
“The central government has asked us whether we still want to go ahead with Shakti Act after the amendment in three acts. We are seeking the legal opinion of law and judiciary department,” said Anup Kumar Singh, principal secretary, home department.
“For instance, BNS has a provision for death penalty for gang rape of minors and mob lynching. On August 3, we wrote to our law and judiciary department to ask for their opinion. Once received, we will push it again with the central government,” said another official from the state home department, who requested anonymity.
The Shakti Bill was modelled on Andhra Pradesh’s Disha Act, passed in December 2020. It introduced amendments to certain sections of the IPC, CrPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to include a provision for capital punishment for certain crimes against women. Other changes included increasing the quantum of punishment for acid attacks on women and sexual attacks on minor girls, and making it mandatory for an investigation to be completed within 30 days of the complaint being registered. It also has provisions to deal with crimes against women on digital and social media platforms.
After the Bill was sent to the Centre for approval in March 2022, the Maharashtra government received multiple queries over the last two years. “The queries were related to overlapping provisions in the IPC, CrPC and POCSO Act,” said an official from the home department. “They also raised questions over the shorter period given for the investigation and filing of the charge sheet. Police officials from the forensic wing expressed their reservations over making the forensic reports available in a week or two weeks.”
The Union home ministry had also raised reservations over the regional nomenclature of the Act, the official added. “They have raised queries about location-tracing and retrieval of data from the mobiles of the victim and the accused.” The data privacy bill introduced in Parliament has provisions that could contradict the provisions in the Shakti Bill. According to the official, location-tracing needs special permission, while violating the right to privacy is a sensitive subject.
After the Bill was introduced, several prominent lawyers and child and women’s rights groups had also expressed concerns over the introduction of the death penalty. They argued that it could deter victims from reporting the crimes, especially in cases where they know the perpetrators.
Former director general of police D Sivanandhan said, “More and more stringent acts like Shakti are welcome, but we need to have faster trial and faster judgement within 10-30 days after charge sheets are submitted in cases related to women and children. Hundreds of Shakti or Disha laws will not be useful to control such cases that happened in Badlapur and Kolkata unless faster judgements are ensured.”