President Murmu gives assent to three new Criminal Law Bills and Telecommunication Act

 

On December 25, President Droupadi Murmu assented to the three new criminal justice bills passed by the Parliament last week. 

The three laws — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Act — will replace the colonial era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act.

The President also signed the Telecommunications Act, 2023, the Union government’s long-discussed successor to the Telegraph Act of 1885 which still governs telecom services in India. Following the presidential assent, rules to enact different Sections of the Act will be required.

While replying to a debate on the three bills in Parliament, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the focus was on delivering justice rather than handing down punishment.

The legislation aims to completely overhaul the criminal justice system in the country by giving definitions of various offences and their punishments. These have given a clear definition of terrorism, abolished sedition as a crime and introduced a new section titled “offences against the state”.

The Act largely leaves telecommunications law intact while formalising certain practices like reserving spectrum bands for different purposes and instituting dispute resolution measures for conflicts between licensed service providers and the government. The Act also provides for newer ways for telecom operators to obtain permissions to set up their equipment in different States.

The main addition that has worried digital rights advocates is the potentially wide berth given to the term ‘telecommunications’ in the Bill, which doesn’t explicitly exclude online services such as email and messaging apps. This could allow the government to impose stricter controls on messaging apps, activists had warned. Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw has since clarified that the government doesn’t intend to regulate online apps through the Act.

The law also settles the question on whether spectrum for satellite Internet should be auctioned or not. Neeraj Mittal, the Department of Telecommunications’ Secretary, told a gathering of MPs last week that it was impractical to auction satellite Internet spectrum, as it uses high-frequency wavelengths that multiple users can use without much interference.

The telecommunications industry’s biggest firms — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio — welcomed the Act but stopped short of celebrating it. There is no provision in the Telecommunications Act to allow for a ‘network usage fee’ to be paid by web firms to telecom operators, a demand that telcos argue is financially necessary but web firms have argued it violates the principles of Net Neutrality. Mr. Vaishnaw said in Parliament during the Winter Session that Net Neutrality was a “resolved issue,” indicating that the government isn’t seriously considering the demand.

While it is unclear when the Telecom Act’s subordinate rules will be prepared and notified, previous notifications — such as licences issued to telcos — remain valid, so telcos are not pressing for speed on that front. However, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, an entirely fresh legislation on online privacy, has not been notified at all, and rulemaking remains pending months after the law was passed in the Monsoon Session.

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(With input from news agency language)
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