Now, 10-yr jail for snatchers in city

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 2  

Snatchers  in Chandigarh will  get a jail term up to 10 years as the Centre has extended the anti-snatching law of Haryana to the UT.

The Administration had sent a proposal for extending the  Act  after it found it tough to deal with snatchers, who have  become a nuisance in the city. The existing law in the city has failed to act as a deterrent for the snatchers.

Sources  said the Union Home Ministry issued a gazette notification on May 29 under Section 87 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, extending the anti-snatching law of Haryana — Indian Penal Code (Haryana Amendment) Act, 2014 — to the UT, Chandigarh.   Haryana is the first state to make snatching a crime that is punishable by a maximum of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.

Haryana added  two  new Clauses to Section 379 of the IPC to  strengthen the existing law. By adding Clauses 379A and 379B, the state government defined snatching as a non-bailable crime.  

Trial in such snatching cases will now be conducted in the sessions courts instead of judicial magistrate courts. Section 379 of the IPC (theft) carries a maximum punishment of three years, or a fine, or both. According to 379A (snatching), a convict will be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term that is not less than five years but which may extend to 10 years, along with a fine of Rs 25,000. Section 379B (snatching and use of force) allows a convict to be punished with rigorous imprisonment not less than 10 years, which may extend to 14 years, with a fine of Rs 25,000.

There has been a rise in the number of chain and purse-snatching cases in the city. The issue  also  came under the scanner of the   High Court. In the  absence of a harsher  law, snatchers  were let off easily. There have been cases where victims have been injured by criminals, but the police  failed to act tough against them. 

Hemant Kumar, an advocate, while welcoming the decision, said the MHA had not mentioned extension of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Haryana Amendment) Act, 2014, to Chandigarh too.

While the IPC was a substantive law, the CrPC was a procedural law. It is the CrPC (Haryana Amendment) Act, 2014, which classifies the above referred two Sections in the Indian Penal Code on snatching as cognisable, non-bailable and triable by the sessions court. Without extending the latter to the UT, Chandigarh, the former is incomplete.  

He  exhorted the UT Administrator to take up  the  matter with the  Union Home Ministry at the earliest.

Taking leaf out of Gujarat

On May 22 this year, President Ram Nath Kovind gave assent to a Gujarat legislation under which chain snatchers in the state will face up to 10 years of imprisonment instead of three years elsewhere in the country.