Objective might be good but new criminal laws have created chaos: Madras High Court

The Madras High Court on Friday remarked that the nomenclature of the three new criminal laws has caused chaos even if the objective behind enacting the laws might have been good..The bench of Justice SS Sundar and Justice N Senthil Kumar also said that though objections and opinions were called from stakeholders and public before enacting the laws, the same was done more like a formality and such opinions were not actually considered."The object might be good but it has created chaos. Objections and opinions were called for but it was only a formality. None of them were implemented," it said.The Court made the observations while hearing a batch of Public Interest Litigation petitions challenging the three criminal laws."Normally though, at least in principle, if the government wants to make an amendment to even a simple legislation, it is first sent to the Law Commission for its opinion," the Court said during the hearing.The Court also questioned the names of three criminal laws - the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam."In the present case, you (Union of India) wanted to make some amendments, what was the need to change the names of the laws? It is only to confuse the public," the bench said..The petition heard today was filed by RS Bharathi who is the organising secretary of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).As per the plea, the new criminal laws are "concerted design to weaponize the law by criminalizing democratic and peaceful acts of expressing dissent and opposition to state policies, systematically dismantle the most fundamental principles of criminal jurisprudence, such as the right to free and fair trial, and centralize powers of the police and provide impunity and ensure immunity of the police and state officials.".After a brief hearing today, the Court said it would examine the matter in detail and listed Bharathi's petitions with other related PILs challenging the criminal laws.It granted four weeks to the Union of India to file a counter to the petitions..The Court had earlier refused to stay the three new laws in a PIL challenging the Sanskrit/ Hindi names given to them