First case under new penal code Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita registered in Delhi against street vendor

The first FIR under India's new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (BNS), which replaces the Indian Penal Code (IPC) from today, July 1, has been registered at the Kamla Market police station in Delhi, ANI reported.

An FIR under Section 285 of the BNS has been registered against a street vendor for obstruction under the foot-over bridge (FoB) of New Delhi Railway Station.

Special CP, Training, Chhaya Sharma told ANI that the FIRs are being registered under the new sections as the laws have come into effect. She mentioned that a key point of the new laws was the focus on digital evidence and emphasis on the role of forensic experts.

“We have prepared a pocket booklet - divided into 4 parts - and it contains IPC to BNS, new sections added to BNS, categories that now come under 7 years of punishment, and a table that contains sections needed for everyday policing,” Sharma told ANI.

The nation's new criminal laws — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) — were passed in Parliament in December 2023. These laws replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, respectively.

According to a report by The Indian Express, Home Minister Amit Shah said these laws have been framed by Indians, for Indians, and by an Indian Parliament.

The BNS also introduced a handful of new crimes. Clause 69 is one of the notable ones and penalises sexual intercourse through the employment of “deceitful means”. Critics are of the view that, in some cases, this might end up criminalising consensual relationships and provide a fillip to the “love jihad” narrative, reported The Indian Express.

While the new laws were presented as part of an exercise in decolonising existing criminal laws, legal experts and activists opposed its implementation, saying broader consultations should have taken place before the government enforced them.