The Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, or BNS, a redraft of a key criminal law, and new versions of two other criminal laws based on changes recommended by a parliamentary standing committee will be taken up for discussion in Lok Sabha on Thursday.

Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday tabled BNS, Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, and Bharatiya Saksha (Second) Bill, which seek to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act.

During the debate on the three bills, Opposition lawmakers were expected to raise the issue of the breach of security in Parliament on Wednesday.

Two men jumped into the Lok Sabha from the visitors’ gallery and sprayed smoke in after clearing three layers of security with smoke canisters stuffed in their shoes. The breach came hours after parliamentarians paid homage to the nine people killed in the 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament.

On Tuesday, Congress floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury asked the government to refer the three bills to a joint select committee. Shah refused to do so, pointing out that the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs has reviewed the bills. Shah said, “Several recommendations of the committee have been accepted. The MPs will get 12 hours to debate the bill from Thursday.”

The three criminal law bills, first introduced in August, were referred in the same month to the parliamentary committee for review. Shah on Monday withdrew the original bills to reintroduce their modified versions.

The previous version of the bill on the penal code for the first time in the country proposed to introduce community service as one of the punishments for “petty” offences, including criminal defamation.

The new bill to replace the CrPC has now defined “community service”. It says states that “community service” shall mean the work which the court may order a convict to perform as a form of punishment that benefits the community, for which there shall be no remuneration.

Section 113 of the reintroduced BNS, which deals with “terrorist act”, provides for the death penalty or life imprisonment. The concept of a terrorist act was introduced first in BNS, which seeks to replace the IPC, in August under Section 111.

As per the parliamentary committee’s suggestion, the government has qualified that an officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police shall decide whether to register the case under this section or under the UAPA.

The standing committee made around 50 suggestions in the old bills. Shah said several amendments were grammatical.

Two key recommendations of the panel including a gender-neutral provision criminalising adultery and a clause that criminalises non-consensual sex between men, women, trans persons, and acts of bestiality in the BNS have been rejected and are not included in the revised bill.

The BNS introduced on Tuesday includes a new provision under section 73, under which a person can face a punishment of jail term of up to two years if he or she prints or publishes any matter about any proceeding before a court concerning rape cases. In the previous version of the bill, only publishing the identity of the victim was punishable.

The revised BNS has also changed the term “mental illness” to “unsound mind” on the parliamentary panel’s recommendation. The panel recommended that the word “mental illness” in the proposed new criminal law may be changed to “unsound mind” as mental illness is too wide in its import in comparison to unsound mind, as it appears to include even mood swings or voluntary intoxication within its ambit.