PURPOSE OF CRIMINAL LAW REFORM COMMITTEE (CLRC)
Law is an ever-changing and ever-growing field. Like a river, one must keep it flowing to maintain its essence. Law that is stagnant loses its value and, at times, even turns repressive. The purpose of forming the Criminal Law Reform Committee is to enable the law to keep up with the changing times and to address contemporary issues. The members of the Committee would identify the lacunae in the existing Criminal Laws of India and address them. They would analyze the contemporary issues that persist in the society that have not been addressed or provided solutions by the present criminal laws and suggest modifications or changes to alter the laws in such a manner as to cover the lacunae.
The Criminal Law Reform Committee members would strive to make suggestions and recommendations to ensure that the laws that are outdated are reformed to keep up with the present times.
The members would conduct comparative analyses of other jurisdictions to recommend the best and innovative solutions that the Legislature could adopt into the Indian Criminal Law system. Furthermore, the members would bring in their varied knowledge, experience, values and thoughts to enrich the meetings and discussions of the Committee.
In line with the vision of Dr B.R. Ambedkar Legal Research Centre (ALRC) to nurture young researchers and show exceptional talent through internships, clerkships and scholarships, the Criminal Law Reform Committee would provide opportunities to young researchers to contribute to the research projects undertaken by the Committee.
Furthermore, the Criminal Law Reform Committee would collaborate with other academic and non-academic institutions to promote and develop strong research that would positively impact society. The Committee would follow the Research Centre’s objective of forging and evolving strong symbiotic relationships with colleges, universities, research agencies, industries, and research and development institutions in India and abroad, with a view to network and complement infrastructural facilities and human resources. Furthermore, the projects undertaken by the Committee and the recommendations made by the Committee would inculcate values of social justice, human rights and humanitarian values.
ACTION PLAN FOR CLRC
The Reform Committee, (for brevity, ‘committee’) with the perspectives of garnering ideas to feed into the existing lacunae in the domain of criminal law, decides to undertake the research activities which are inclusive of the theoretical activities as well as field study. The action plan will mostly be inclusive of;
1. Call for papers – Inviting research-oriented papers pan India focusing on the lacunae existing in the current criminal laws. The aim would primarily be to gather to ideas from diverse fraternities. This would also branch out to
– Blogs
– Research Papers
– Short articles
– Case analysis focused on judgments pertaining to the interpretation of criminal law
– Statistical studies pertaining to incidents and the role played by criminal law in preventing the same
2. Field Survey – Undertaking survey which is initially will be area specific and gradually extending it to other areas for understanding the diverse opinions across the different strata of people. This will be undertaken with the help of small groups formed among the members of the committee to carry out the survey.
3. Seminar – By inviting panelists from diverse fields, the reform committee plans to conduct seminars that would aid the committee to gather opinions of experts on the relevant subject. For this purpose there would be sub-committees formed to organize seminars on a timely basis and each member will be allocated their respective duties ranging from drafting the agenda for the seminar, inviting panelists, collating reports of each seminar.
4. Collaboration with agencies and organizations – The committee aims to approach various organizations and agencies including NGOs that can aid the committee in culminating the purpose from which it has been formed. The idea is to gather ground knowledge by and thereby using that as parameter to add to the suggestive mechanisms that the committee would supplement in its report.
5. Conferences – The committee also gradually plans to organize conferences which would eventually go from small scale to large scale extending over a couple of days. The aim is to have in depth discussions on relevant matters that will help us churn out the best ideas from the pool of experts presiding over such conferences.