The government, on April 21, approved the introduction of the death penalty for those who rape children below 12 years of age, amidst outrage over a series of prominent cases.
There have been nationwide protests in recent weeks over the gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, Jammu & Kashmir. The government came under fire for maintaining silence and shielding of rapists, and not doing enough to prevent sexual-assault cases, many involving children.
A number of crimes in the country carry the death penalty, but raping a child was not among them.
The introduction of new ordinance has left many polarised over its effectiveness, citing that the existing laws need to be implemented better rather than amending and setting up new laws.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in 2016, of the 64,138 child rape cases that came up before the courts under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act under Section 376, 1,869 cases ¡ª or less than three per cent ¡ª ended in convictions.?
PTI
In more than 94 per cent cases of rapes of women, (34,650 out of 36,657 cases), the offender was known to the victim ¡ª he was either a close family member, a neighbour, or an acquaintance.?
Supreme Court advocate Vrinda Grover told NDTV: ¡°Far from reporting the crime, death penalty is going to deter the victim from reporting sexual assault when the offender is from the family or is known to them. This will lead to the crime being suppressed and the victim being left completely helpless. Without strengthening the investigation process or the prosecution, creating an enabling environment both in the court and outside, and improving the conviction rate, the sentence is irrelevant.¡±
The POSCO Act provides for trials to be completed within a year. However, at the end of 2016, 89 per cent of the cases were pending trial.
In the wake of outrage over the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case, the UPA government, in its Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, introduced the death penalty for the non-homicide offence of rape under IPC Sections 376E (for repeat offenders) and 376A (for rape that reduces the victim to persistent vegetative state).
The two rape cases are also a warning to a growing perturbing trend ¨C child rape./Reuters
In 2014, under this Section 376E of the IPC, three men were sentenced to death in the Shakti Mills gang rape case in Mumbai.
The National Law University (Delhi), in its ¡®Death Penalty India Report 2016¡¯, interviewed 373 of the 385 prisoners in India on death row and concluded that the structural death penalty in India shows that it is ¡°disproportionately imposed on vulnerable persons along the axes of economic and social parameters¡±.?