Question

Chapter dealing with Plea Bargaining has been inserted by

• A. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1993
• B. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005
• C. The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 2001
• D. The Code of Criminal (Amendment) Act, 1993

Hint:

Remember the key recent amendments to major procedural codes. The introduction of Plea Bargaining (Chapter XXI-A) into the CrPC by the 2005 Amendment Act is a significant development frequently asked in exams.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

The key fact to anchor this on is the Malimath Committee's recommendation and when Parliament actually acted on it.

1. Trace the reform's origin: Plea bargaining was recommended by the Malimath Committee on Criminal Justice Reforms as a way to reduce case pendency and offer quicker resolution for specified offences.
2. Identify the enacting Act: Parliament gave effect to this recommendation through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005, which inserted Chapter XXI-A (Sections 265-A to 265-L) into the CrPC, with the changes coming into force in July 2006.
3. Eliminate the earlier dates: Both 1993 options predate the Malimath Committee's work entirely, and the 2001 option misstates the actual year the plea bargaining chapter was enacted.

The correct answer is The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005.

Answer 2

Another way to confirm this is to recall the section numbers themselves, since Sections 265-A to 265-L are a well-known marker of when this chapter was inserted.

1. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1993: This enactment cannot be the source, since no chapter numbered 265-A onward existed in the CrPC until well over a decade later.
2. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005: This Act is the one that added Sections 265-A through 265-L as an entirely new chapter, and its coming into force in 2006 is the commonly cited date for when plea bargaining first became available in Indian criminal procedure.
3. The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 2001: Amendments passed in 2001 addressed different aspects of criminal procedure and did not introduce this particular numbered chapter on plea bargaining.
4. The Code of Criminal (Amendment) Act, 1993: As with the other 1993 option, no version of this chapter existed at this point in time, ruling this option out on chronological grounds alone.

Matching the well-known section range to its enacting statute again confirms the 2005 Act as the source.

So, the correct answer is The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005.