NEW DELHI: The debate on the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill — which seeks to expand the ambit of measurements to be taken for identification of persons convicted, arrested or on trial in criminal cases — turned out to be a courtroom-style face-off between two senior lawyers, P Chidambaram and Mahesh Jethmalani, with the former leading the opposition charge in questioning its “dangerous” implications for personal liberties and privacy and the latter countering his arguments point-by-point.
Chidambaram and most other members of the opposition parties — TMC, DMK, CPI, RJD, SP and AAP — sought the bill to be referred to the select committee but an amendment moved to this effect was later negated during voting.
Terming the bill as “extremely defective, apart from being dangerous”, Chidambaram alleged that it has overlooked two historic Supreme Court judgments — one in Selvi v. State of Karnataka, 2010 which prohibited administration of narco analysis, polygraph test and brain-mapping for being violative of privacy and also in the Justice K S Puttaswamy v. Union of India, which recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
Countering Chidambaram’s concerns of violation of privacy guaranteed in the Puttuswamy judgment, Jethmalani said right of privacy was available to all, more so to people not propelled towards crime. He also said the law had a provision where a person’s measurements would be destroyed once he is acquitted or discharged or if the case against him never goes to trial. Also, Jethmalani said no person could be forced to share his biological samples without his consent, if the offence against him is punishable with a prison term of less than seven years (except where the crime is against a woman or child). He wondered how Chidambaram, who was elected to RS from Maharashtra, was opposing the bill when that state itself was supposed to start a database of fingerprints and those identification attributes that the bill is supposed to capture, but postponed the launch.
Chidambaram and most other members of the opposition parties — TMC, DMK, CPI, RJD, SP and AAP — sought the bill to be referred to the select committee but an amendment moved to this effect was later negated during voting.
Terming the bill as “extremely defective, apart from being dangerous”, Chidambaram alleged that it has overlooked two historic Supreme Court judgments — one in Selvi v. State of Karnataka, 2010 which prohibited administration of narco analysis, polygraph test and brain-mapping for being violative of privacy and also in the Justice K S Puttaswamy v. Union of India, which recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
Countering Chidambaram’s concerns of violation of privacy guaranteed in the Puttuswamy judgment, Jethmalani said right of privacy was available to all, more so to people not propelled towards crime. He also said the law had a provision where a person’s measurements would be destroyed once he is acquitted or discharged or if the case against him never goes to trial. Also, Jethmalani said no person could be forced to share his biological samples without his consent, if the offence against him is punishable with a prison term of less than seven years (except where the crime is against a woman or child). He wondered how Chidambaram, who was elected to RS from Maharashtra, was opposing the bill when that state itself was supposed to start a database of fingerprints and those identification attributes that the bill is supposed to capture, but postponed the launch.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’, ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘593671331875494’); fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
More News
US Begins Supplying Ukraine With Weapons Amidst War, Biden Accuses China, Iran, And North Korea Of Aiding Russia
In Supreme Court affidavit, ED cites Delhi CM Kejriwal’s conduct to justify his arrest – Times of India
JDU Youth Leader Fatally Shot In Bihars Patna By 4 Bike Borne Assailants