Rolling out new criminal laws, CAA major tasks of MHA in 2024

Home Minister Amit Shah, who piloted the legislations, said the new criminal laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era laws that gave primacy to penal action.

New Delhi: Replacing the century-old criminal laws with a new set of legislations for introducing a modern and technology-driven criminal justice system, rolling out the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and fire-fighting to check unabated violence in Manipur kept the Union home ministry busy in 2024.

Assisting the Election Commission in holding the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir without major incidents and bringing down the violence in Naxal-affected states and northeastern region are the other key highlights of the country's crucial ministry.

While the population enumeration exercise Census continues to be on hold for past four years as no decision has been taken by the ministry as to when it will be carried out, the ministry created five year districts in Ladakh and renamed Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands as Sri Vijaya Puram during the year.

The three new criminal laws -- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam -- replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 respectively. The new laws came into effect from July 1. Home Minister Amit Shah, who piloted the legislations, said the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era laws that gave primacy to penal action.

"These laws are made by Indians, for Indians and by an Indian Parliament and marks the end of colonial criminal justice laws," he said.

Shah said the laws were not just about changing the nomenclature but bringing about a complete overhaul. "Soul, body and spirit of the new laws are Indian," he said.

The new laws brought in a modern justice system, incorporating provisions such as Zero FIR, online registration of police complaints, summonses through electronic modes such as SMS and mandatory videography of crime scenes for all heinous crimes.

According to home ministry officials, the new laws have tried to address some of the current social realities and crimes and are going to provide a mechanism to effectively deal with these, keeping in view the ideals enshrined in the Constitution.

The CAA, which was enacted in December 2019 for granting Indian nationality to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India on or before December 31, 2014, was rolled out in March and the first set of 14 people were granted Indian citizenship under the law in May.

Shah termed the occasion of granting Indian citizenship under the CAA as a "historic day", saying the decades-long wait of those who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan is over.

After the enactment in 2019, the CAA got the president's assent a few days later but the rules under which the Indian citizenship were supposed to be granted were issued only on March 11 after over a delay of four years.

The passing of the CAA in 2019 sparked protests in different parts of the country with agitators terming it "discriminatory". Over a hundred people had lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police action in various parts of the country.

To allay fears of a section of Muslims and students regarding the CAA, the home ministry, a day after the CAA rules were issued, asserted that the Indian Muslims need not worry as the new legislation would not impact their citizenship and has nothing to do with the community which enjoys equal rights as their Hindu brethren.

The ministry made it clear that "no Indian citizen would be asked to produce any document to prove his citizenship after this Act".

Intermittent violence continues to rock Manipur, where the first bout of ethnic clash between majority Meiteis and tribal Kukis was witnessed in May 2023.

Even after the death of about 260 people, injury to hundreds and displacement of thousands of people, peace continues to be elusive in the northeastern state. Though there have been efforts from the central government to bring the warring communities into negotiating table, sporadic violence continues there.

Members of the ruling BJP were also not spared. Mobs set fire to the residences of several BJP legislators, one of whom is a senior minister, and a Congress MLA in various districts of Imphal Valley in November besides making a foiled attempt to storm the ancestral house of Chief Minister N Biren Singh.

Seeing the fragile situation, the Centre in November reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Manipur's six police station areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam.

On December 24, the Centre appointed former union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla as new Manipur governor, in an apparent bid to help itself find a lasting peace. However, it is to be seen how Bhalla will walk through the difficult terrain of the sensitive state.

Jammu and Kashmir witnessed a relatively peaceful assembly elections, which was held after a gap of 10 years.

According to a presentation given by the home ministry to a parliamentary panel, there has been over 70 per cent decline in terror-related incidents in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, when Article 370 was scrapped and the erstwhile state was bifurcated into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

The ministry said in 2019, as many as 286 terror-related incidents were reported in Jammu Kashmir and the number came down to just 40 in 2024 (till first week of November).

In 2019, as many as 50 civilians were killed in terror-related incidents and the casualty figure came down to 14 so far this year.

On attacks on security forces, the home ministry said a total of 96 such incidents were reported in 2019 and it went up to 111 in 2020 but since then there has been a steady decline and the number of such attacks came down to 95 in 2021, 65 in 2022 and 15 in 2023 and five so far in 2024.

About casualties of security forces, the ministry said altogether 77 security personnel were killed in various incidents in 2019.

In 2020, 58 personnel were killed, 29 in 2021, 26 in 2022, 11 in 2023 and seven so far in 2024.

Violence perpetrated by Naxals also witnessed a decline. There has been 72 per cent less violence by Maoists while the country has seen an 86 per cent decline in deaths by Naxals in 2023 as compared to 2010.

In a recent visit to Naxal-affected Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, Shah appealed to the Naxals to give up the arms and join the mainstream and said otherwise they will have to face the strong action of security forces.

He said the rehabilitation of the surrendered Naxals is the responsibility of the government.

Shah said the government is committed to make India Naxal-free by March 31, 2026 as a comprehensive three-pronged strategy is being adopted to free all affected areas in the country from the menace.

The work for India's much-delayed decadal census and the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) has not started yet, thus changing the future census cycle completely.

Since 1951, the country's census was conducted at a gap of every 10 years but the census work in 2021 could not be carried out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far no formal announcement has been made on its next schedule.

Last month, the home ministry made it clear that any NGO which is involved in anti-developmental activities, religious conversion, incite protests with malicious intentions, has linkage with terrorist or radical organisations will face cancellation of its Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) registration.

According to the law, all NGOs receiving foreign contributions have to be registered under the FCRA or else is not allowed to accept foreign funding.

The home minister last week started the process of rehabilitation of Bru tribal community members in Tripura following a quadripartite agreement signed on January 16, 2020.

The pact was signed among the governments of India, Tripura, Mizoram and representatives of Bru organisations for the permanent rehabilitation of Bru migrants in Tripura.

As many as 6,935 families with a population of 37,584 are being rehabilitated in 12 villages in Tripura. The Bru tribals were displaced from Mizoram following ethnic violence in lst 1990s and early 2000s.

Continuing its thrust on comprehensive development of villages located in remote areas along the border with China, the government allocated Rs 1,050 crore for 2024-25 under the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) that will benefit select villages in 19 districts in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh.

The central government has approved the VVP as a centrally sponsored scheme on February 15, 2023, with financial outlay of Rs 4,800 crore for the financial year 2022-23 to 2025-26 for comprehensive development of the select villages in 46 blocks in 19 districts abutting the northern border.