Section 320 Pakistan Penal Code

[Olowookere Devost]

ThePakistan Penal Code (Urdu: مجموعہ تعزیرات پاکستان; Majmū'ah-yi ta'zīrāt-i Pākistān), abbreviated as PPC, is a penal code for all offences charged in Pakistan. It was originally prepared by Lord Macaulay with a great consultation in 1860 on behalf of the Government of British India as the Indian Penal Code. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Pakistan inherited the same code and subsequently after several amendments by different governments, in Pakistan it is now a mixture of Islamic and English Law. Presently, the Pakistan Penal Code is still in effect and can be amended by the Parliament of Pakistan.[1]

The draft of the Indian Penal Code was prepared by the First Law Commission and it was chaired by Lord Macaulay. Its basis is the law of England freed from superfluities, technicalities and local peculiarities. Suggestions were also derived from the French Penal Code and from Livingstone's Code of Louisiana. The draft underwent a very careful revision at the hands of Sir Barnes Peacock, Chief Justice, and puisne Judges of the Calcutta Supreme Court who were members of the Legislative Council, and it was passed into law in 1860. Macaulay did not survive to see the Penal Code's enactment.[2]

Though it is principally the work of a man who had hardly held a brief, and whose time was devoted to politics and literature, it was universally acknowledged to be a monument of codification and an everlasting memorial to the high juristic attainments of its distinguished author. For example, even cyber crimes can be punished under the code.

Explanation: In this section the word "offence" includes every act committed outside Pakistan which, if committed in Pakistan, would be punishable under this Code. Extension of Code to extraterritorial offences.

First five punishments are added by amendments and are considered Islamic Punishments, and very few have been sentenced to these punishments so far. Anyone who is sentenced to the first five punishments can appeal to the Federal Shariat court.

On January 17, 2023, the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan\u2019s federal Parliament, unanimously passed an amendment to Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy law through the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2023. This private member\u2019s bill was introduced by Moulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali, a member of the religious party Jamaat-e-Islami. In the statement of objects and reasons for the bill, he highlights blasphemy on the internet and social media and asserts that disrespecting the companions of the Prophet Muhammad and other sacred personalities \u201cnot only promotes the terrorism and disruption in the country but it also hurts the people from all walks of life.\u201d In an Express Tribune news report, he stated that \u201c[t]he punishment for insulting a member of parliament is five years, while the punishment for insulting the sacred personalities is three years. This is an insult in itself.\u201d The bill will now be sent to the upper legislative chamber, the Senate, for consideration.

Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy law, which consists of sections of Chapter XV (\u201cOf Offences Relating to Religion\u201d) of its Penal Code, criminalize insults or derogatory remarks against religion or religious feeling. Pakistan, like many other South Asian jurisdictions, inherited its substantive criminal law, including certain blasphemy provisions, from the British colonial government through the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Pakistan\u2019s blasphemy laws as enacted by the British were \u201creligion-neutral.\u201d However, additional provisions were added to Pakistan\u2019s Penal Code in the 1980s under General Zia-ul Haq in an effort to \u201cIslamisize\u201d them and protect against insults to Islam. These blasphemy provisions include defiling or desecrating the Holy Qur\u2019an (Penal Code \u00a7 295-B), using derogatory remarks in regard to Muslim holy personages (\u00a7 298-A), and most significantly, insulting the Prophet Muhammad (\u00a7 295-C, in accordance with Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1986; the Federal Shariat Court held in 1991 that the death penalty must be imposed for this crime because the alternative punishment of life imprisonment provided in \u00a7 295-C was repugnant to the injunctions of Islam).

Section two of the amending proposal increases the punishment to \u201cimprisonment for life which shall not be less than ten years.\u201d The bill also amends Pakistan\u2019s Code of Criminal Procedure to make the offense non-bailable and requires that it be tried by a sessions court instead of the lower magistrates court. The author of the bill stated that because the punishment in the original section was a \u201csimple punishment,\u201d \u201ccriminals commit the same crime again and again in spite of the punishment,\u201d and \u201cthat due to such simple punishments, people tried to punish criminals on their own, which led to mob violence and vigilante \u2018justice\u2019.\u201d

The New York Times quoted Abdul Akbar Chitrali as saying that \u201c[t]he punishment for disrespecting these sacred personalities was almost nill earlier,\u201d while deputy speaker of the Parliament Zahid Akram Durrani called the legislation \u201chistoric\u201d and \u201ccongratulated the lawmakers for carrying out what many saw as their religious duty.\u201d Rights activists, on the other hand, expressed their alarm, with Saroop Ijaz, the senior counsel for Human Rights Watch in Asia stating, \u201cPakistan\u2019s existing blasphemy laws have enabled and encouraged legal discrimination and persecution in the name of religion for decades.\u201d

Publications of the Library of Congress are works of the United States Government as defined in the\u00a0United States Code 17 U.S.C. \u00a7105\u00a0and therefore are not subject to copyright and are free to use and reuse.\u00a0 The Library of Congress has no objection to the international use and reuse of Library U.S. Government works on\u00a0loc.gov. These works are also available for worldwide use and reuse under CC0 1.0 Universal.\u00a0

Publications of the Library of Congress are works of the United States Government as defined in the United States Code 17 U.S.C. 105 and therefore are not subject to copyright and are free to use and reuse. The Library of Congress has no objection to the international use and reuse of Library U.S. Government works on loc.gov. These works are also available for worldwide use and reuse under CC0 1.0 Universal.

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