As India is celebrating 75 years of Independence, the police continue to be in the public gaze, most often for antagonistic reasons. Criminal laws and procedures, though modified, and the shadows of India’s colonial legacy do not appear to leave the police agency any time soon.
Changes to the IPC
India’s parliamentarians rose to the occasion and passed The Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, with an objective more to reform, rather than punish, offenders. Realising the urgent need to check the social evil of dowry, the Dowry Prohibition Act was passed in 1961. More revolutionary changes were made in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 1983 and 1986 and by introducing Sections 498A (cruelty by husband and his relatives) and 304B (dowry death) along with certain amendments in the Evidence Act. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, was enacted in 1989.
