The new laws which came into force on Monday have set the stage for a long legal challenge to the amended legislation in the Supreme Court and high courts.

Prominent lawyers and groups are planning to challenge the new laws as they claim that there was no proper debate or discussion in Parliament on the amendments as over 140 Opposition MPs were under suspension in December 2023 when the laws were passed.

They argued that since the tenure of the previous NDA government ended in May this year, the new government lacks the constitutional and legislative competence to enforce it from July 1 this year without Parliament's fresh consent.

The Centre formally notified the three new laws in the official gazette on December 26, 2023, to make them enforceable from July 1, 2024. Legally, any Act passed by the legislature will have the legal force and binding effect only upon a formal gazette notification. Challenge to the legislation can also be made by an aggrieved person or organisation only upon the Act being formally notified.

The Supreme Court will resume its regular work from July 8 after the summer recess. While the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (BNS) and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 (BNSS) have come under virulent criticism for their perceived tilt towards a police state, the same cannot be said about the new Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA).

This is because the BSA has provided for a radical change by infusing electronic evidence which includes “…any information given electronically, which would permit appearance of witnesses, accused, experts and victims through electronic means; (ii) it provides for admissibility of an electronic or digital record as evidence having the same legal effect, validity and enforceability as any other document”.

There was no such provision in the erstwhile Indian Evidence Act, the predecessor of the BSA. The new law seeks to fill the gap in the context of the massive advancement of digital equipment in all walks of life.

A significant change brought in the new law also includes the incorporation of Section 167 of the BNSS which now authorises a judicial magistrate to detain an accused person in police custody for a period extending up to 90 days. This is in contrast to the earlier Section 167 of the CrPC under which a person could at the most be remanded to police custody for a maximum period of 15 days.

The amended provision hence gives the police enough opportunity to inflict more “third-degree” methods to extract confessions thus violating his or her fundamental rights.