The committee, headed by retired Justice Ashim Kumar Roy, includes state law minister Malay Ghatak, state finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, the state advocate general, senior standing counsel of West Bengal in the Supreme Court Sanjay Basu, West Bengal police chief, and Kolkata police commissioner.
Kolkata: Today (17th July): The West Bengal Government has established a seven-member committee led by a retired judge of the Calcutta High Court to review three new criminal laws.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s administration issued a notification regarding this on Wednesday.
“The state government is pleased to constitute a committee for reviewing the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA),”
stated the notification from the state home department.
These three new laws—Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam—replaced the British-era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Indian Evidence Act on July 1.
The committee, headed by retired Justice Ashim Kumar Roy, includes state law minister Malay Ghatak, state finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, the state advocate general, senior standing counsel of West Bengal in the Supreme Court Sanjay Basu, West Bengal police chief, and Kolkata police commissioner.
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“The committee shall submit its findings in a report within three months from the date of the notification,”
the document added.
The committee may involve academic experts, senior advocates, research assistants, and other legal experts, and can also conduct public consultations.
West Bengal is the third state, after Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to form a committee to amend these three criminal laws.
Earlier this month, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin established a one-man commission to recommend state-level amendments to the three new criminal laws, including a name change.
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In June, Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting a deferment of the implementation of the three laws and further discussions on them in Parliament.
