ANALYSING THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (IDENTIFICATION) BILL, 2022
By Vivek V Nair, Jefin Shaji & Helen Mary Varghese
(Students, School of Legal Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology)
| Abstract The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 intends to collect what it terms as ‘measurements’ from certain classes of persons and allows for its processing, storage, preservation, dissemination, and destruction, with the aim of identification in crime, crime investigation and prevention of crimes. The Bill will repeal the Prisoners Act 1920 once it comes into effect. The Bill also comes in connection with the DNA Technology Regulations Bill 2019. This paper intends to understand the shortcomings of the Bill and its interference with the Constitution. The Bill is clearly violative of Right to Equality under Article 14 as it vests wide discretionary powers with the Central and the State governments. Further, the Bill also violates Right to privacy under Article 21 because the Bill has a disproportionate impact on the right of privacy that overshadows the legitimate aim of the Bill. The vast collection of Data along with its retention for a period of 75 years further questions the true purpose of the Bill. The entire exercise of collection and storage of the different types of measurements will create greater administrative burdens and may not deliver on promised returns, making the creation of such database(s) unnecessary while also infringing on the fundamental rights. |
| Keywords Measurements, DNA Technology Regulations Bill, Right to Equality, Right to Privacy. |
| Type | Research Paper |
| Information | Lex Humanitariae: Journal for a Change, Volume III Issue I, Pages 260-270 |
| DOI Link | https://doi-ds.org/doilink/04.2022-65567375/lexhumanitariae/V3I1/A32 |
| ISSN | 2582-5216 |
| Creative Commons | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |
| Copyright | © 2022- Lex Humanitariae: Journal for a Change |