The Centre has formally notified in the official gazette the three newly rechristened laws — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 — setting the stage for a legal challenge of the amended legislations in the courts.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 will replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita will replace the Code of Criminal Procedure Act 1898 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 will replace the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

According to the Government of India official gazette, the notification came into effect on December 25 after President Droupadi Murmu formally gave her assent.

Any act passed by the legislature will have legal force and binding effect only upon a formal gazette notification. Challenges to the legislation can also be made by an aggrieved person or organisation only upon the act being formally notified.

As the newly amended laws have come under fire from critics for some of their disturbing changes, the Supreme Court and various high courts are likely to be moved by litigants challenging the impugned amendments.

While the amended BNS (IPC) has incorporated 358 provisions as against the earlier 511 provisions, the BNSS has 531 new provisions compared to the earlier CrPC with 484 provisions. The Indian Evidence Act in its new avatar as BSA has 170 provisions compared to the earlier 167 provisions of the Indian Evidence Act.

The significant changes brought in the new law include the incorporation of section 167 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) which now authorises a judicial magistrate to detain an accused person in police custody for a staggering period extending up to 90 days.

This is in contrast to the earlier section 167 of the CrPC under which a person can at the most be remanded to police custody for a maximum period of 15 days.

The amended provision hence gives the police personnel enough opportunity to inflict more third-degree methods to extract a confession from a person thus violating his or her fundamental rights.