Eastern Zonal Council Meet to be held in Bhubaneswar

The Eastern Zonal Council meeting for the states of Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand is to be chaired by home Minister Amit Shah. The meeting is to discuss cases of rape against women, sexual offences, prevention of cattle smuggling in the India-Bangladesh Border, etc.

Highlights

The Home Minister will discuss with the Chief Ministers of all the 4 participating states. The minister will also review the status of the amendments of Code of Criminal Procedure. Under the amendment, the time limit of the completion of investigation of criminal cases were limited to two months. This was done through the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2018

Previous Councils

In the recent meetings of Western Zonal Council and Northern Zonal Council, the Home Minister directed the state police review pending cases as quickly as possible. The Council also instructed to update case details at Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences. It is an online portal that helps states to undertake real-time monitoring, managing and completion of cases, especially rape cases in 2 months.

Zonal Council

Zonal Councils are statutory bodies constituted under States Reorganization Act of 1956. According to the act, India is divided into 5 zones and a council has been set up for every zone. The zones include Northern, Eastern, Western, Southern and Central. In 1971, the North Eastern council was created.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2020