The Criminal Procedure Identification Act 2022 passed by the Parliament repealed the Identification of Prisoners Act 1920 and expanded the scope of information the government can collect from convicts, arrested persons and other persons such as the habitual offenders. The sole objective of the legislation is to improve the conviction rate in the country, protect the human rights of crores of law-abiding citizens and also send across a strong message in the society.
A small beginning was made in 1980 when the law commission made a recommendation on these lines and in the year 2003 the ‘Malimath Commission’ also echoed the same sentiments. We always talk about the fundamental rights of the people who are convicted or the person who is accused. Where is the fundamental right of the person who is the sufferer, the complainants/victims? Where do they go? Where is the fundamental right of those people, the person who obeys the law, feels cheated?
The data collected under this law is not being run by a police station, it will be under the governance and the superintendence of the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau). Any new legislation is bound to have certain roadblocks and hiccups, but having said that the proper training for proper policing, and proper supervision will ensure that there is very little scope for manipulation. It has to be made full proof, fail-proof and the ecosystem of security that statute that will generate has a tremendous fallout and the citizens need to know that the checks and balances have been appropriately addressed and that there is proper policing and supervision to ensure that the ground level working is transparent and error-free.
All developed countries have had this law for many years, we have just introduced this law after such long years. In the US suppose there is any person accused of a crime, police can verify the background of that person, where he has come from, who are his parents, whether he is available in this country or is travelling abroad? These benefits are available with just a click of the mouse. This law will allow the data to be collected by a scientific algorithm and it’s very difficult to fudge the data that has been collected very carefully. We have inherited a system of writing the case diaries where there was so much authority and discretion with the IO (Investigation Officer). We have observed that manipulation is possible in the traditional standards which is not possible here. It is from the database, a digital history sheet; therefore it is very difficult to fudge the data and is a scientific innovation. Scientific innovation will always have to be development based and also bring reinforcement to the law so that it becomes fail-proof during its use. There may be chances of some person trying to misuse but the chances are minimum because the evidence produced will not be oral on what is written in the case diary, it is scientific evidence, scientifically collected, scientific collated and scientifically produced. Therefore, the scope of manipulation and corruption is minimal. It is a new dimension to investigation policing which will be beneficial to the country and everybody.
Even in the current level of policing there are multiple levels of checks and balances like there is an active list for very petty and minor matters, then there are several police stations in which the data and the modus operandi are incorporated, then finally if a person figures in any crime whether convicted or acquitted there is a history sheet which is closed and destroyed only after the death, therefore this is a digitised form of history sheeting. The database was being done as a hard copy in active list and wanted list, but this practice is already in existence and it is only recorded in electronic form.
Concerns are raised that we still don’t have a Data Protection Law in India; this huge data will be collected throughout the police stations and Head Constables will collect the data and that data will be put in the depository of NCRB for 75 years. Two years back, a data protection law was conceived and the joint parliamentary committee had made several recommendations after which it was supposed to be introduced in the parliament. If we don’t have a data protection law and we are going to collect huge (mega billions) bytes of data then chances of minor manipulation are not ruled out and hence at the moment, it could cause injustice to at least a few.
The Act itself gives power to every State because it is a State subject, they can frame their own respective rules. Let’s see how it’s implemented, and how the rules are framed by the States, for now, the bill is given assent by the President and published in the official gazette, hence it is law of the land today. There are a lot of merits and certain valid concerns which have been flagged off by opposition members, so how these are addressed is something that we’ll all have to wait and watch but for the moment it’s a very significant step to reduce the crimes.
The second part of the story is that we always talk about the fundamental rights, the human rights violations of the accused; now it also takes into account the story of the ones who have suffered as victims for so many years, who keep going to the courts but their hearings are only delayed. We hope this law will strengthen the trust that will be built in our justice system if this particular law is implemented in full effect after all the concerns are addressed.
(The author is an advocate by profession)
