Ex-CJI Lalit flags ambiguity on community service aspect in BNS

New Delhi, Sep 24 (PTI) Former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit on Wednesday flagged the lack of guidelines for awarding community service under the newly-enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Addressing a group of lawyers at an event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, Justice Lalit said that punishment for defamation under Section 356(2) of BNS, could be up to two years of imprisonment, or fine, or both, or community service.

"However, there are no guidelines as to how much community service there should be. If it is two years of prison does it mean two years of community service?" he said, while pointing out that the type of community service was not specified.

"What kind of community service? Is it something like Kar Seva in your Gurudwara? How much time a day? Two hours, four hours, six hours, or eight hours? And what is the measure?" he asked.

For Justice Lalit it appeared that the aspect was left to the discretion of judges.

"There are no guidelines when it comes to this logic of granting community service as a punishment. This is essentially at a very ad hoc level and purely left to the discretion of the convicting judge or the punishment judge," Justice Lalit said and called for specific legislative guidelines on community service punishment. PTI MNL MNL AMK AMK