Hosted by Vaishnavi Rathore
Edited by Manasi Nene
This April, the Parliament passed the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022. The Act authorises taking fingerprints, handprints, footprints, eye scans, and other physical and biological samples of convicts and other persons. There are plenty of concerns with the Bill — it violates a person’s privacy, there is no limitation as to how this information can be used, and it doesn’t even matter whether the person in question has been declared guilty or not. But its biggest impacts will probably be felt by those who already live on the margins of society, such as the Vimukta communities or Denotified Tribes.
We spoke with Nikita Sonavane, co-founder of Criminal Justice & Police Accountability Project on how the criminal justice system already has a disproportionate impact on Denotified Tribes and Vimukta communities, and the challenges lawyers face when representing communities who have already been branded as “habitual offenders” for generations.
