India passes biggest reforms to criminal code in 150 years amid suspension of opposition

“The stated aim of the three bills is that we are decolonising the criminal justice system and creating citizen-centric procedures,” says Naveed Mehmood Ahmad, a senior fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, a Delhi-based think-tank.

“Systemic reform is necessary. And generally, when you see governments taking up such tasks, you see incremental reform, you see amendments here and there. But the idea that they explored was that maybe we can fix everything in one go and address all issues in terms of trial evidence and substantive law altogether. The idea may have been OK. But there is nothing in terms of how these provisions, how the new bills change things on the ground,” he tells The Independent. This article was published in Independent on December 22, 2023.