DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill

The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill is a draft Indian law intended to establish a statutory framework for the use of deoxyribonucleic acid analysis in criminal investigations, identification of missing persons and unidentified bodies, paternity disputes, and other civil matters. Its lineage traces to a 2003 draft prepared by the Department of Biotechnology in consultation with the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad, which was later revised by the Law Commission of India. The Commission's 271st Report (July 2017), titled "Human DNA Profiling — A Draft Bill for the Use and Regulation of DNA-Based Technology," supplied a model text and flagged constitutional concerns under Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) and Article 20(3) (protection against self-incrimination). The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2018 and reintroduced as the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019; it was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

The Bill's procedural architecture rests on three pillars: a regulatory board, an accreditation regime for laboratories, and a tiered databank system. It proposes a DNA Regulatory Board as the apex statutory authority, chaired by an eminent person in biological sciences, empowered to grant or revoke accreditation of DNA laboratories, set quality standards, and advise governments. Only laboratories accredited by the Board may undertake DNA analysis for the purposes the Bill enumerates. Each laboratory must follow prescribed procedures for collection, retention, and destruction of biological samples, and must transmit profiles to the databank rather than retaining raw samples indefinitely.

The second mechanism is the National DNA Data Bank together with Regional DNA Data Banks at the state or zonal level. The databanks are organized into indices: a crime scene index, a suspects' or undertrials' index, an offenders' index, a missing persons' index, and an unknown deceased persons' index. Matching is conducted across indices to generate investigative leads. The Bill prescribes that DNA profiles be stored as alphanumeric data rather than physical samples, and it contemplates removal of a person's profile on acquittal, discharge, or filing of a written request, subject to court order in certain categories. Consent requirements vary: written consent is generally required for collection from a person who is not a suspect in an offence punishable by death or imprisonment exceeding seven years, while a Magistrate may order collection where consent is refused.

Contemporary engagement with the Bill centres on New Delhi. The Department of Biotechnology under the Ministry of Science and Technology has been the nodal sponsor, while the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics provides technical capacity. The Parliamentary Standing Committee, chaired by Jairam Ramesh, submitted its report on the 2019 Bill in February 2021; a dissent note appended by members raised pointed objections to the inclusion of civil matters and the breadth of databank retention. The Bill subsequently lapsed and was withdrawn from the legislative agenda, leaving India without a dedicated DNA statute as of the mid-2020s. Forensic DNA work has continued under general criminal-procedure provisions and the regional forensic science laboratory network.

The Bill is distinct from adjacent instruments and should not be conflated with them. It differs from the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which governs personal data broadly but does not establish forensic DNA procedures or a genetic databank; DNA profiles raise sui generis concerns that general data-protection law addresses only obliquely. It is also separate from the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 and its successor, the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, which authorizes collection of measurements—including biological samples—from arrested and convicted persons but lacks the laboratory-accreditation and databank-governance scaffolding the DNA Bill contemplates. The Bill is a regulatory and infrastructural statute, whereas these others are enabling or protective in character.

Controversy has tracked the Bill since its inception. Critics, including the Internet Freedom Foundation and several Standing Committee members, argued that DNA profiles can reveal far more than identity—familial relationships, predisposition to disease, and ethnic markers—creating risks of surveillance, function creep, and caste or community targeting. The K. S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India judgment (2017), which recognized informational privacy as a fundamental right, sharpened the proportionality scrutiny any such databank must withstand. Objections also targeted the absence of an independent privacy ombudsman, the inclusion of civil disputes that could expose ordinary citizens, the wide retention of crime-scene profiles of innocents, and the under-specification of consent in the case of vulnerable populations. The lapse of the Bill reflects the unresolved tension between investigative utility and constitutional safeguards.

For the working practitioner—the civil-services aspirant, the policy researcher, or the law-enforcement adviser—the Bill is a recurring case study in balancing technological capacity against rights protection, and a staple of UPSC General Studies Paper III treatment of science, technology, and internal security. Its trajectory illustrates how privacy jurisprudence reshapes data-intensive governance in India, why accreditation and chain-of-custody standards matter for evidentiary integrity, and how comparative models such as the United Kingdom's National DNA Database and the United States CODIS system inform domestic design choices. Even absent enactment, the Bill remains the reference framework whenever India debates statutory governance of forensic genetics.