A post claiming that ‘to curb the abuse of power by the police, the central government has made changes to section 41A CrPC and abolished station bail’ is being shared on social media platforms. But is station bail really abolished? Did the central government make any changes to section 41A CrPC? Let’s find out through this article. Union Law Department has amended Section 41A of CrPC and cancelled the police station bail in order to check corruption in the police department. Fact: The Law Ministry has not made any recent changes to section 41A of CrPC. Even though the 2008 & 2010 CrPC amendment acts were repealed in 2015, according to the General Clauses Act (1897), repealing an amendment act does not repeal or have any impact on the changes made through the amendment act to the original act. The amendments made to the original act will be intact until and unless the original act is repealed/amended explicitly. Hence the claim made is FALSE The URL of the article provided in the post is now deleted, but the archived version of the same indicates that it was originally published in the year 2015. We analysed why this went viral in 2015 and found that it is because of the misinterpretation of the Repealing and Amendment (Second) Act, 2015 which repealed the CrPC amendment acts made in 2008 & 2010 among many other acts. The passage of this repealing act in 2015 had created quite a buzz on social media back then, claiming that the power of police to grant a station bail for the accused has been curbed and thereafter everyone, for every case, has to approach the court to get bail. This message has once again gone viral now. But does the repealing of an amendment act repeal the contents of the amendment to the original act which it was intended to amend? Let’s find out. What is an Amendment?The modification of materials by addition of supplemental information; the deletion of unnecessary, undesirable, or outdated information; or the correction of errors existing in the text. According to the General Clauses Act, 1897 “Repeal of act making textual amendment in act or regulation- Where any central act or regulation made after the commencement of this act repeals any enactment by which the text of any central act regulation amended by the express omission, insertion or substitution of any matter then, unless a different intention appears, the repeal shall not affect the continuance of any such amendment.” The above clearly explains that repealing an amendment act does not in any way repeal the provisions which were introduced to the original act through the amendment act. The amendments made to the original act will remain intact unless any particular provision or the act in toto is repealed/amended explicitly. According to the Reference Note of the Parliament library, having imparted the amendments to the main act, the amendment acts have served their purpose and have no further reasons for their existence. Hence, repealing acts are intended to excise such dead matter (like the amendment acts) from the statute book and to reduce its volume. Here is more about the repealing of the amendment acts from the central government appointed two-member committee report, available on the website of the Legislative Department of the Union Ministry of Law & Justice. Let’s understand this through an example. The Hindu Succession Act, 2005 (passed in 2005) had amended the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. According to the amendments made in 2005, on and from the commencement of the act, in joint Hindu family governed by the Mitkarshara law, the daughter of the coparcener shall The Repealing and Amending (Second) Act, 2015 had also repealed The Hindu Succession Act, 2005. However, this doesn’t mean that the amendments made through that 2005 act are also repealed, as is evident from the various court judgements delivered after 2015 based on the amendments introduced in 2005. The supreme court in Dannama @ Suman Surpur Vs Aman & others in 2018, delivered the judgement in accordance with the Hindu Succession Act, 2005. Similarly, the Delimitation Amendment Act,2002 which is intended to redraw the boundaries of the Lok Sabha and the State assembly constituencies according to the 2001 census to represent the change in the population is repealed by the Repealing and Amending act, 2015. This doesn’t mean that the amendments made were repealed as the current day state assembly and Lok Sabha constituency boundaries are demarcated based on the provisions added through the delimitation amendment act. What are the amendments made to CrPC in 2008 ? This CrPC amendment act passed in 2008 has amended the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, 1973 and introduced three new sections (41A, 41B,41C) into it. 41A.