Destruction of a Penal Code by mindless Plagiarism

 Complete Silence in Media and Intelligentsia about Destruction of Indian Penal Code

More than a week has passed and I am still awaiting a proper review or any constructive criticism of the new Penal code (Namely Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita) passed in Indian Parliament when most of opposition leaders were suspended and no MP managed to critique any  section of the new penal code in the charade of a parliamentary debate that ensued before Passing of the bill.

 All three branches of Indian Democracy (Legislature, Judiciary and the executive ) take the Sovereign of India, that is to say, the citizens of India as a bunch of fools and take our apathy to read laws and our long held wrongful notion that "Laws are complex and can't be Understood by ordinary public".

On the contrary, the basic notion of having laws published in a Democracy is that,  laws must be written in lucid language and in on orderly fashion so that entire Citizenry can comprehend .

I intend to write few blogs to save your years from being wasted within classroom walls of law schools and whenever good humour can be found in stupidity of the high and mighty, I'll showcase them as well within the confines of good manners. 

 Since I have filled 2 notebooks with my observations of the monumental stupidity that passed in the name of Penal Code Reform , this has to done in multiple posts of blogs.

To Reform, One Must Know The Current Form and Structure : Knowledge is Paramount for Changing a System

 All laws are broken up in paragraphs which are organized into Chapters ,  Chapters broken up in Sections comprising one or more paragraphs ,  Sections may be broken up into Individual paragraphs (Which are numbered sequentially) to specify individual clause or facet of the topic described in the section .

Chapters must and Sections may have title to describe what those paragraphs are all about. 

All laws start with Introductory Sections where the name, scope and extent of the laws are mentioned. Immediately after that legal definitions, legal paradigms introduced in that law are explained. In Nineteenth century, even grammatical constructs used in the law are defined among legal definitions. I fear most law professors and practitioners have forgotten about grammar related parts of IPC.

Thereafter, the operative sections and mentioned.  If there are major exceptions to the sections, they are mentioned as well. Putting these in different chapters, creates better readability and clarity in documentation.

Old Indian Penal Code was broken up in 23 original chapters and 3 chapters added subsequently through amendments to the penal code. 

 

 

 Let's start at the very beginning while reviewing the new Penal code and focus on the first two chapters of IPC (Introduction and General Explanations) and what they meant originally and where and how they are placed in new Penal Code i.e. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. 

Botched Up New Penal Code from First Chapter. 

Old IPC had 5 Sections in Introduction, Section 1 gave the title and extent of its operations, Section 2 gave legal basis for giving punishment, Section 3 allowed offences under IPC that are committed outside India, to be tried in India, Section 4 to extended reach of IPC to outside India.. etc.

All 5 sections are now copied and pasted in One Section, Namely Section 1 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. They appear a Sub-Sections in same order and with exact same sentences. Even explanations are same as in Old IPC. 

It is clear that authors of new Penal Code didn't understand Section 3 and Section 4 of Old Penal Code.  These provisions clearly allowed trial of people of crimes mentioned in IPC inside India even when committed outside India; as they still had to introduce section 48 later on in the chapter of abetment. 

This is so hilarious, under new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, one abettor inside India will be charged under one section ... whereas an abettor outside India will be charged under two sections of the act.

Clearly whoever wrote Section 48 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, never really read the very first section of their own Penal code. Knowing the scope of a Penal code is of paramount importance while writing a new penal code.

Needless to add that Indian laws are not applicable outside India and Indian Police can't go and arrest Abettors anywhere in the globe. The extra-territorial section of IPC was written in Colonial times when summons could be sent from one British Colony to another within the wretched colonial empire.

Extradition or Deportation works in today's world only when the alleged crime in India was a crime in which the accused was residing at the time of the crime; in which case other sections on Abetment were sufficient to charge any abetment outside India. Section 48 is therefore both redundant and useless in terms of execution of the law.

Murder of Old IPC chapter II : General Explanations weren't only Definitions

As discussed earlier Chapter II of Old IPC didn't only contain legal definitions, but also mentioned:

 

Grammatical Constructs/Constraints as in Section 8 - Gender, Section 9 - Number. 

Legal Concepts of Exceptions( Section 6) and Sense of Expression( Section 7) and Acts and Omission related sections 32 to 38.

 

 A clear giveaway clue would have been use of Quotation marks when giving Section headings.

Even when "Legal definitions" were used, when similar or opposing meaning words are defined, they are defined together as a group in a similar ; such as Section 10  ("Man". "Woman".), Section 33 ("Act". "Omission".), Section 43 ("Illegal". "Legally Bound To Do".), Section 49 ("Year". "Month". ) and Section 23 while introducing the concept of "Gaining Wrongfully/Losing Wrongfully".

These legal terms and concepts were arranged as they had appeared in the later sections of penal code, in the same sequence.

But the makers of new Penal Code were in frightful hurry and committed idiotic mistakes by thinking:

i. Every Section from Section 8 to Section 52 and Section 52A contained only "Legal Meaning" of specific words.

ii. Rearranging these words in Alphabetical order and one word at a time would hide all the Plagiarized sections in new penal code.

iii. Merging all these sections inside of fat section 2 titled "Definitions" would hide their art of "copy/paste" from old penal code.

In Post-Independence India, the revised Penal Code was single biggest opportunity to base LEGAL DEFINITIONS ON CONSTITUTION OF INDIA; but makers of new code didn't utilise that. A GREAT OPPORTUNITY SQUANDERED. 

 Curious case of ignorance of Section 8 and Section 9 among new Sanhita makers: The grammatical default  expression used in Indian Penal Code

 

I would blame the law school professors for not teaching the entire legal fraternity that Section 8 of Indian Penal Code is about "Default use of pronoun He and its derivatives in the Penal Code" and is not about classification of Gender, either from birth or by preference. Section 8 of IPC merely stated even though "He" is masculine, wherever he is used, it will imply to all humans, whether male or not.

Similarly Section 9 was about use of Singular Number and Plural Number in the Penal code and not about Defining the word, NUMBER.

But the makers of new code thought otherwise and Plagiarized them in Section 2, Sub-section (10) for Gender and Section 2, Sub-section (22) for Number. 

By introducing transgender word, the makers clearly exposed their ignorance about the grammatical concept of Gender.🤣🤣🤣🤣

In English grammar, their is no grammatical form or concept of Transgender... although feminine of "He" is "She". 

Although "She" is not written in illustrations, explanations and examples and only "He" is written in IPC, the cases would apply to all, irrespective of Gender... that's all Section 8 of old IPC meant.

 Sub-section (22) is an out and out steal from old IPC Section 9. Only modification is an absurd pair of Quotation marks (") encasing the word "Number" . So makers of new Penal code by putting "Number" within quotes implies wherever this word appears this has to be considered as its literal and legal meaning.. HA, HA, HA.

Whereas the makers go on to use the word "Number" at least 4 times and hold your breath.. 🤣🤣🤣every single time, it means "A finite numerical value" and not "Singular or Plural Number".. I was like 🤣🤣🤣ROFL at their ignorance and lackadaisical skill of law making.

Strange case of Alphabetical Ordering and debasement of important pairing of words along with the legal constructs they represented:

Section 33 included the definitions of "Act" and "Omission" because the precedent section, Section 32 defined "Illegal Omissions" as an "Act".

It is this definition in Section 33 and Section 32, which forms various legal premises such as "Criminal Negligence" and gives rise to phrases such as "Acts or willful/illegal Omissions"

But the makers of new penal code chose to define "Act" in Section 2, Sub-section (1) and "Omission" separately in Section 2, Sub-Section (25) and Dropped sections 32, 35, 36, 37, 38 altogether.. Destroying all the legal premises held in those sections. "Acts and illegal Omissions" are no longer similar things... It will be very hard to prove "Willful Criminal Negligence" of Public Servants..

 So they introduced these IPC Sections in Section 3 - General Explanations of new code in various totally unrelated Sub-Sections.

Section 27 of Old IPC which was struck by Supreme Court of India, reappeared in Section 3, Sub-Section (3). Section 27 stated

27. “Property in possession of wife, clerk or servant”.—When property is in the possession of a person's wife, clerk or servant, on account of that person, it is in that person's possession within the  meaning of this Code.
Explanation.—A person employed temporarily or on a particular occasion in the capacity of a clerk or servant, is a clerk or servant within the meaning of this section.

 Only change in new code is that word "wife" has been changed to "Spouse".

I have never seen such mindless plagiarism by copy-paste as in Section 3 of new penal code. Since Sub-Sections need not have a title.. they are copied without one, therefore hiding its contents and destroying its legal premises. 

Let me list out the sources of Plagiarized contents of subsections of Section 3 and you will find every single line are copied from old IPC and the Section titles are missing. List will be by Sanhita Subsection number and Old IPC section headings/ titles:

(1) - IPC Section 6. Definitions in the Code to be understood subject to exceptions.

(2) - IPC Section 7. Sense of expression once explained.

(3) - IPC Section 27.  “Property in possession of wife, clerk or servant”

(4) - IPC Section 32. Words referring to acts include illegal omissions.

(5) - IPC Section 34. Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention.

(6) - IPC Section 35. When such an act is criminal by reason of its being done with a criminal knowledge or  intention.

(7) - IPC Section 36. Effect caused partly by act and partly by omission.

(8) - IPC Section 37.  Co-operation by doing one of several acts constituting an offence.

(9) -  IPC Section 38. Persons concerned in criminal act may be guilty of different offences.

 of course, you won't find a heading of any subsection in the new code, these were finds of Plagiarism detection software. I hate to be a Judge or a lawyer or a Police officer or even a law school student when this new penal code comes into force.

Section 2 and specially Section 3 are great examples of HOW NOT TO WRITE A SECTION IN A LAWBOOK.

If Plagiarism means Reform, then it's indeed great beginning.. ha ha ha.. strangely Plagiarism was neither a crime under old IPC nor is a crime with new Penal Code.

Although "Plagiarism Detection" software ranks the new Penal code 97.17% plagiarized from the old colonial times Indian Penal Code, in the eyes of the law, every section has to pass through the review and constitutional challenges in the court of law as original definitions and explanations now reside in new section in new chapters.

 Since all these IPC sections present in Chapter 1 and 2 had headings or titles, they were nicely indexed and presented in law books. Now they are hidden in Sub-Sections of Section 1, 2 and 3. They would not be present in any index and would be practically impossible to find out without a Plagiarism Detection Software and copy of old IPC.