New Delhi: A stringent proposed law for hanging rapists of minor girls below 12 years is to be introduced in the Monsoon Session of Parliament scheduled to start from July 18.
The bill, once approved by Parliament, will replace the April 21 ordinance, with a similar provision to execute child rapists, that was promulgated following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and the rape of another woman in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018, also specifies that police investigations and court trial in all rape cases would have to be completed within two months.
Death sentence in India is given to convicts only in the “rarest of rare” cases as ruled by the Supreme Court in the Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab of 1980. The penal provisions prescribe death penalty for a number of serious crimes, but raping a child was not among them until now.
As per the existing penal provisions, rape is punishable by death only if the victim dies or is put in a persistent vegetative state, or if the rapist is a repeat offender. The proposed law now has suggested capital punishment even for those who rape a child.
Rape is punishable by death in at least 10 countries, mostly Islamic, including Iran, Afghanistan, UAE, Egypt, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and North Korea.
In addition to the Modi government’s stringent proposed law to create a deterrence against rapes, the law ministry has drafted a proposal for the Union Cabinet’s approval on setting up “special fast-track courts” to try rape cases across the country.
The fast-track court proposal is part of a scheme that includes components on strengthening physical infrastructure and prosecution machinery, provision for the required number of judicial officers for lower courts, additional posts of public prosecutors and dedicated investigators and special forensic kits.
The Union home ministry is said to have finalised the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018, that is would be placed before the Union Cabinet for approval before introduction in Parliament.
