India to revise colonial-era penal code and toughen laws protecting women

Home minister promises widespread reforms but some experts suggest the new laws are more a repackaging of existing measures than real change

More than 160 years after Lord Macaulay laid down a penal code for what was then a colony of the British crown, India is poised to supplant it with new laws free of colonial vestiges and designed to speed up the judicial process.

The government has introduced three bills in parliament that it says will provide a special focus on crimes against women and address the intolerable delays in the system which can leave people waiting 15-30 years for a verdict.