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The Delhi High Court has issued notice on a PIL seeking judicial review of the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, which was recently passed by the Parliament on April 18, 2022 and received assent of the President on April 19, 2022. 

The Petitioner, Harshit Goel, has sought judicial review of Sections 2(1) (a), 2(1) (b), 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 of the Act, and prayed for appropriate direction to declare the aforesaid provisions of the Act as unconstitutional and void. 

The Petition has been filed by Advocates Yashwant Singh, Harshit Anand and Aman Naqvi and has submitted that the fundamental right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 provides a shield to protect ‘bodily integrity and dignity' and such protection extends to prisoners, under-trials, arrested persons, detainees in the course of investigation and persons in protection homes. Forcing an individual to part with his ‘measurements’ under the provisions of the Act violates the standard of ‘substantive due process which is required for restraining personal liberty. 

The Petitioner has submitted that Section 3 and 5 of the Act, in flagrant violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court, allow excessive, coercive, and arbitrary intrusion into the dignity of a convict as well as of an individual who may be called in a simple questioning, or who is involved in the pettiest of offenses. These provisions constitute a clear attack on ‘personal liberty and clearly fall foul of Article 21 of the Constitution and are thus liable to be struck down.

The Petitioner has further submitted that Section 8 of the Act suffers from the vice of excessive delegation since the legislature has clearly abdicated its legislative functions vide this Section. Section 8 allows the Central Government and the State Government to frame rules regarding issues that are the subject matter of legislative policy without providing any guidance or framework on rule-making to the Executive.

Thus, the Petitioner has argued that the aforesaid provisions of the Act are antithetical to individuals' freedom, equality, rule of law, democratic character of the constitution, and directive principles of State Policy, violate the basic structure of the Indian Constitution, and are liable to be struck down as unconstitutional and void by the Delhi High court.

The newly introduced Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 allows the police to collect finger impressions, palm print impressions, photographs, irs and retina scans, physical and biological samples. It also permits the authorities to collect behavioral attributes including signatures, handwriting, etc. as referred under Sections 53 and 53A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973