Death Penalty To POCSO Act: How Nirbhaya & Kathua Rape Cases Changed Indian Criminal Laws

The Nirbhaya rape case in the chilly December of 2012 brought about a tsunami of protests across the country, with the national capital as the centrestage.

Headlining the protests were the youth of the country fed up with the spiralling crime rate against women and the inefficiency and lackadaisical approach of the lawmakers and police personnel towards checking such crimes.

The people, especially women, felt helpless, and the authorities couldn't care less.

Denied justice, the common man took to overwhelming protests calling for the strictest punishment to the rapists and enacting stricter laws for the safety of the women.

All the six accused of the brutal crime -- Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Singh, Ram Singh and the sixth, a juvenile -- were arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide during his incarceration in Tihar. The juvenile was sentenced to three years of punishment in a reform home and released in 2015.

On 20 March 2020, at 5:30 am Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta were executed at Tihar Jail. They were hanged on gallows specially designed for four people.

How the Nirbhaya case changed rape laws

On March 21, 2013, the rape laws in the country were amended.

The new tougher anti-rape law -- Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 -- to punish sex crimes redefined rape and made punishments more stringent -- including the death penalty for repeat rape offenders.

The Justice Verma Commission was formed to give recommendations in a time-bound manner to improve the rape laws of the country.

On the basis of these recommendations, the Criminal Law Amendment Act (2013) or the Nirbhaya Act came into force.

PTI

Several crimes against women were also brought under the ambit of the law.

These included stalking, voyeurism, acid attacks, sexual harassment and trafficking. It also brought up the age of consent from 16 to 18 ¡ª meaning that even if a sexual act is carried out with the consent of a girl under 18 years of age, it will be considered statutory rape. The definition of rape was amended.

POCSO Act

In 2012, a new law was created to deal with the growing instances of sexual crimes against children.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act or POCSO was enacted in 2012. The scope of POCSO extends to providing protection to children from sexual offences, including pornography. Among the various stringent provisions of POCSO is immediate arrest without bail of the accused.

POCSO is a gender-neutral law. By defining a child as 'any person' below the age of 18 years, the POCSO Act sets a gender-neutral tone for the legal framework.

The act also does not distinguish between perpetrators of child sexual abuse on the grounds of gender, and there have been instances where the courts have convicted women for such abuse.

The flagship feature of the POCSO Act, and arguably the most debated one, is the mandatory reporting obligation imposed under Section 19.

It requires every person who suspects or has knowledge of a sexual offence being committed against a child to report it to the local police or the Special Juvenile Police Unit.

Representational Image

Any person in charge of an institution who fails to report the commission of a sexual offence relating to a subordinate is liable to be punished.

Typically, the trauma that child sexual abuse victims endure prevents them from voicing their complaints immediately.

Recognising this, in 2018, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice clarified that there is no time or age bar for reporting sexual offences under the POCSO Act.

Consequently, a victim can report an offence at any time, even a number of years after the abuse has been committed.

Additionally, Section 23 of the POCSO Act prohibits disclosure of the victim's identity in any form of media, except when permitted by the special courts established under the act.

According to a 2017 survey conducted by World Vision India, one in every two children is a victim of sexual abuse in India.

Further, in a majority of the cases, the perpetrators are known to the victim, leading to a reluctance on the victim's part in approaching authorities for redressal.

Impact of Kathua rape case

Responding to public outrage over the horrific gangrape that went on for days and the murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government cleared the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance 2018, which was promulgated by the president on April 21.

BCCL

The bill introduced the death penalty for rape of a girl below 12 years of age, while also increasing the mandatory minimum sentences for rape.

However, punishment for the rape of boys has remained unchanged.

There are differing views on the death penalty for rape. Some argue that the death penalty has a deterrence effect on the crime and is an "aggressive response" to crime and therefore helps prevent it.

While laws have been amended time and again and made stricter to deal with the growing number of cases of sexual abuse and assault, what remains unchanged is the attitude towards rape and the weight of stigma attached to it.

For more on news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.