Congress MP Manish Tewari gives adjournment notice in Lok Sabha to discuss new criminal laws

In the notice, Tewari urged the House to suspend Zero Hour and relevant rules to discuss the implementation of the three new Criminal Acts.

The Congress MP said that the three new Criminal Acts were passed in the Lok Sabha at a point in time when 146 MPs had been suspended from both houses of Parliament, that is Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, while they were demanding accountability for the security breach that had occurred in the Lok Sabha on December 13, 2023.

"These three new Acts are going to upend the entire criminal jurispredence of the country which has now been established and has stabilised over the period of more than a century," Tewari said in the notice.

He also claimed that lawyers, jurists and constitutional experts have repeatedly expressed serious concerns in the public space with regard to the implementation of these laws which have been passed in Parliament without the collective application of the wisdom of Parliament.

Tewari urged that the implementation of these laws be referred to a joint parliamentary committee.

"A joint parliamentary committee should reexamine them threadbare, only then a final view on these criminal acts should be taken," he said.

"As today is the last day on which Parliament would be meeting before these three new criminal acts would be coming into force. Therefore, this adjournment motion is being moved given the extreme exigency of the situation," Tewari added.

The three new criminal laws, namely Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Sanhita replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860; the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973; and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, which came into effect from Monday.

The three new laws received Parliament's nod on December 21, 2023. President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent on December 25, 2023, and it was published in the official gazette on the same day. (ANI)