The recent tabling of Bills on criminal laws has become a causa celebre. In as much as they set overdue reforms into motion, the Bills do well to amend the substantive criminal law as codified in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and Indian Evidence Act (IEA). The offences and procedures outlined in the IPC or CrPC represent just one facet of a general criminal law and its vital to recognise that the most critical offences and procedures are encompassed within the Special and Local Laws (SLLs).
Keeping SLLs away from the ongoing reform process is a major drawback. SLLs have immense quantitative and qualitative relevance in the Indian criminal justice system.
To illustrate, nearly 39.9% of all cognisable offences registered in 2021 were under SLLs. As per the Crime in India Statistics of 2021, of the total of nearly 61 lakh cognisable offences registered, 24.3 lakh offences were registered under SLLs alone. On the qualitative side, SLLs have given rise to several fundamental and pertinent debates, discourses and discussions regarding the limits on the state’s power of criminalisation especially in the context of violation of individual rights and liberties.
