Govt to introduce Bill to expand collection of biological samples of arrested persons, convicts

The government will introduce a Bill to significantly expand the scope of a 102-year-old law to allow police to take physical and biological samples of a convict or an arrested person in Lok Sabha on Monday.

The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022, which is aimed at authorising the police for taking measurements of convicts and other persons for the purposes of identification and investigation in criminal matters and to preserve records, will repeal the existing The Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920.

The new Bill allow police to collect "finger-impressions, palm-print impressions, footprint impressions, photographs, iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples and their analysis, behavioural attributes including signatures, handwriting or any other examination" referred to in section 53 or section 53A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

In the existing law, it is limited to allow for taking of finger and footprint impressions and for a limited category of convicted and non-convicted persons and photographs on the order of a Magistrate.

Any convicted, arrested or detained under any preventive detention law will be required to provide their "measurements" to a police officer or a prison official.

However, all persons who are not convicted or arrested for crime against women or children, as well as those who are in custody for an offence punishable with imprisonment for a period less than seven years, can deny permission to take their biological samples.

Till now, measurements could be taken of only those convicted or arrested of any offence punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term of one year or upwards, or of any offence which would render him liable to enhanced punishment on a subsequent conviction.

"Resistance to or refusal to" allow the taking of measurements will attract the provisions of Section 186 (obstructing public servant) of the Indian Penal Code and can face a jail term of three months or fine up to Rs 500 or both.

The record of measurements will be retained in digital or electronic form for 75 years from the date of collection.

At the same time, such records of persons who are not previously convicted but released without trial or discharged or acquitted by the court, should be destroyed after exhausting all legal remedies. Here too, a magistrate can override this with reasons recorded in writing.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has been authorised to collect the record of measurements from state governments or Union territory administrations or any other law enforcement agencies to store, preserve and destroy the record of measurements at national level and process such records with relevant crime and criminal records.

Explaining the rationale for the need for the law, the Bill's Statement of Objects said that new 'measurement' techniques being used in advanced countries are giving credible and reliable results and are recognised the world over.

"The existing law does not provide for taking these body measurements as many of the techniques and technologies had not been developed at that point of time and it is essential to make provisions for modern techniques to capture and record appropriate body measurements in place of existing limited measurements," it said.

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