Replacing the century-old criminal laws with a new set of legislations for introducing a modern and technology-driven criminal justice system, rolling out the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and fire-fighting to check unabated violence in Manipur kept the Union home ministry busy in 2024.
Assisting the Election Commission in holding the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir without major incidents and bringing down the violence in Naxal-affected states and northeastern region are the other key highlights of the country's crucial ministry.
While the population enumeration exercise Census continues to be on hold for past four years as no decision has been taken by the ministry as to when it will be carried out, the ministry created five year districts in Ladakh and renamed Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar Islands as Sri Vijaya Puram during the year.
The three new criminal laws - Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam - replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 respectively. The new laws came into effect from July 1.
Home Minister Amit Shah, who piloted the legislations, said the new laws would give priority to providing justice, unlike the colonial-era laws that gave primacy to penal action.
"These laws are made by Indians, for Indians and by an Indian Parliament and marks the end of colonial criminal justice laws," he said.
Shah said the laws were not just about changing the nomenclature but bringing about a complete overhaul. "Soul, body and spirit of the new laws are Indian," he said.
The new laws brought in a modern justice system, incorporating provisions such as Zero FIR, online registration of police complaints, summonses through electronic modes such as SMS and mandatory videography of crime scenes for all heinous crimes.
According to home ministry officials, the new laws have tried to address some of the current social realities and crimes and are going to provide a mechanism to effectively deal with these, keeping in view the ideals enshrined in the Constitution.
The CAA, which was enacted in December 2019 for granting Indian nationality to persecuted Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India on or before December 31, 2014, was rolled out in March and the first set of 14 people were granted Indian citizenship under the law in May. After the enactment in 2019, the CAA got the president's assent a few days later but the rules under which the Indian citizenship were supposed to be granted were issued only on March 11 after over a delay of four years. The passing of the CAA in 2019 sparked protests in different parts of the country with agitators terming it "discriminatory".
