National Assembly passes Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill

The National Assembly on Thursday passed the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2008, aimed at providing relief to accused persons in getting bail. The Bill was moved by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Syed Naveed Qamar on behalf of Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan.
The bill stated that trial of accused persons get delayed due to various causes, including the pendency and huge backlog in the courts with the result that the accused persons languishing in jails for indefinite period without trail. The bill is aimed at providing relief to the accused and granting them bail after two years in case offences are punishable with death and after one year in case of offence not punishable with death.
The period has been further reduced to one year and six months, respectively, in case of women accused. Similar amendment has been made in section 426 of the Criminal Procedure if case gets delayed at appellant stage. Earlier, before the passage of the bill, Zahid Hamid of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said that he does not want to oppose the bill despite some objections on the contents of the bill adding that the overall nature of the bill is positive.