New Delhi: The Lok Sabha today introduced The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018. The law provides stringent punishment even the death penalty for those criminals convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years.
The amendment was done following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in the district of Kathua located in Jammu and Kashmir and the rape of another woman from Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh. Once approved in the Parliament, the law will replace the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance promulgated on April 21.
While introducing the bill, Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of State, commented that the rapes of minor girls and gang rape of women under the age of 16 and 12 years in recent incidents have shaken the conscience of the entire nation.
He further said that the offenses of rape and gang rape of women under the age of 16 and 12 years required effective deterrence by means of stringent punishment through legal provisions.
“Some of the incidents in recent years have been marked by increased brutality and violence perpetrated on minor girls. This has fueled demands from various sections of the society to make penal provisions more stringent and effective, immediate arrest of the accused and ensure speedy trial in such cases,” he said.
The introduced bill stipulates stringent punishment for perpetrators of rape crimes, particularly of minor girls below 12 years of age. The death sentence has been provided for rapists of girls under 12 years of age.
The minimum punishment for cases of rape of women has been increased from the rigorous imprisonment of 7 years to 10 years. The provision is also extendable to life imprisonment.
In case of rape of a minor girl under the age of 16 years, according to the bill, the minimum punishment has been increased from 10 years to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for the rest of life. That conveys the meaning of jail term till the convict lives his “natural life”.
For a crime of gang rape of a minor girl below 16 years, the punishment will be imprisonment for the rest of convict’s life.
For rape of a girl under 12 years, the stringent punishment has been provided with the minimum jail term of 20 years and can be extended up to life in prison or even death sentence. The crime of gang raping a girl under the age of 12 years will attract punishment of jail term for the convict’s rest of his life.
The measure also has a provision for speedy and fast investigations and trial. It has stipulated a time limit for investigation of all type of cases of rape and needs to be completed within the period of two months.
The provision does not provide any chance of anticipatory bail for a person accused of rape or gangrape of a minor girl under the age of 16 years.
Under the provision, a court is required to give notice of at least 15 days to a public prosecutor and the victim’s representative before finalizing any bail applications in case of rape of a girl under the age of 16 years.
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