New Criminal Procedure Bill welcome, but must be implemented carefully, say experts

The Criminal Procedure Identification Bill 2022 which was cleared by Lok Sabha on Monday has raised concerns among lawyers with some calling it attempts at infringement of privacy while others say the old act did not serve any purpose midday held a discussion with expertsmdashAdditional Director General and Chief of AntiTerrorism Squad Uttar Pradesh Police expert on interface of Forensic Law and Crime Investigation Dr G K Goswami Dean of School of Law at Tata Institute of Social Sciences Dr Arvind Tiwari and Technical Advisor to Maharashtra Government Amol Deshmukhmdashto get their views on the issueEdited excerptsDr Goswami said ldquoI am of the view that the Bill is a much needed change for crime investigation in todayrsquos digital age as the earlier Act was limited to collecting only fingerprints and footprints of prisoners Database of criminals with identification markers is a global phenomenon and India can no more be an exception The proposed Bill broadens the scope of investigation beyond finger and foot prints and covers morphological and other unique human traits like voice samples as stated in Ritesh Sinha v State of Uttar Pradesh 2019 DNA profiling etc which are very crucial today for crime scene investigation of varied naturerdquoNeed appellate authorityHe however added ldquoInvestigating agencies should strike a balance between the right of state and public rights visagravevis private rights ensuring that there is no violation of the right to privacy and personal dignity as emphasised by the Supreme Court in intertwined judgments of K S Puttaswamy v Union of India delivered in 2017 and 2018 The judicial intent must be adhered to by ensuring that there is not any infringement of privacy Only in select cases where habitual and professional offenders are involved the scope of the identification methods can be put into use and should not be put in practice in each and every case In case of any dilemma a superior officer of the rank of Superintendent of Police can provide such directionsrdquoDr Goswami suggested ldquoThere is a need to have an appellate authority which can be approached in cases of misuse of coercive steps by police Forensic psychologybased deception detection techniques DDTs such as narcoanalysis brain mapping and lie detector must be seen in different jurisprudential perspectives too and may be deliberated in the light of Selvi v State of Karnataka case of 2010rdquoBill is much requiredProfessor Tiwari from TISS agreed with Dr Goswami and said ldquoWe must understand that with changing times and increasing crime and civil disputes some of the Acts and codes have become so obsolete that they have no relevance today and need to be repealed The Prisoner Identification Act of 1920 is one such act which had to be done away with as it was only limited to prisoners and had limited scope for the jail staffpolice The new Bill is a muchneeded change and will go a long way in maintaining a proper database of specialised heinous offendersmdasha practice which is already implemented by many developed countries across the globeHe added ldquoWe have come across numerous instances where blanket power has been misused by law enforcing agencies and the probability of such misuse cannot be ignored As policing is a state subject and they usually get influenced by the ruling government therefore it is important to have a competent authority or a superior officer not below the rank of SP who should be authorised for allowing such extraction of information only in serious offences and not petty offence or else it will be a futile exercise and would lead to infringement of privacy and violation of Constitutional rightsrdquoClarity on preventive measuresMeanwhile Deshmukh said ldquoThe Bill has both sides to it It is good that India is serious on strengthening internal security and is taking one more step towards crime prevention as it will boost conviction rate by making identification of serial offenders easier Along with this advanced technology like artificial intelligence and multimodal biometric systems will bring down narcotic cases crime against women and also offences like robbery theft etcrdquoSpeaking about the opposition to the bill over violation of fundamental right to privacy he said there was lack of clarity about preventive steps to ensure the collected data is not abused and this should be looked into