The Union Cabinet has approved certain amendments to the Protection of Children
from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, to strengthen the special law in view
of rising sexual crimes against children.
Approved by the Union Cabinet late last month, the amendments provide for
stringent punishment for crimes against children below 18, including death
penalty for aggravated sexual assault on minors.
Sexual offences, particularly against children, have been a big problem in
India. In 2016, 21 per cent of the total 39,068 cases of rape were against
girls below 16 years of age, forcing the legislature to act against it.
In recent years, states such as Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and
Arunachal Pradesh have taken legislative measures to prescribe death penalty
for the rape of girls below the age of 12 years. At the central level, the NDA
government promulgated the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018, on April
21, 2018, providing for death as the maximum punishment for rape of girls below
12. It has since been passed by both Houses of Parliament.
Punishment is the most natural response to crime. Also, the quantum of
punishment awarded to offenders must be proportionate with the nature and
gravity of crime so as to deter criminals from disturbing peaceful citizens and
challenging the authority of the state.
Every time there is a brutal rape of a minor, there is popular demand to hang
rapists. But prescribing death penalty for rape of children is a problematic
idea. It increases the risk of the victim being killed by the offenders who
might think that leaving her alive could send them to the gallows as she would
be an eyewitness to the crime.
Second, it creates a tool that is unlikely to be used against rapists of
children. There has not been any execution in India for a non-terror capital
crime since August 14, 2004, when Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in Kolkata
for the rape and murder of a minor girl. In fact he is the only convict sent to
the gallows in the entire country in the 21st century. Before that, serial
killer Auto Shankar was hanged on April 27, 1995, in Salem, Tamil Nadu.
Third, the Indian judiciary is becoming increasingly averse to death penalty.
It has already restricted the scope of capital punishment through a series of
judgments, the most important being the 1981 Bachan Singh versus State of
Punjab (1980) in which it propounded the doctrine of “the rarest of the rare”
cases.
But there are many positive points in the amendments approved by the Cabinet.
The POCSO Act is a gender-neutral legislation that defines child as any person
below 18 years and one of the amendments proposed to the Section 9 of the Act
aims to protect children from sexual offences in times of natural calamities
and disasters.
It also seeks to penalise those administering any hormone or any chemical
substance to children to make them attain early sexual maturity for the purpose
of sexual assault.
To address the menace of child pornography, Sections 14 and 15 of the Act are
proposed to be amended. Besides fine, the offender can be be jailed for
transmitting such material in any manner, except for the purpose of reporting
as may be prescribed and for use as evidence in court. It also prescribes more
stringent punishment for storing or possessing any child pornographic material.
What is needed is a mix of effective preventive social, legal and police action
to save children from falling prey to sex maniacs.
A problematic idea because…
- Fear of death penalty is likely to increase the risk of the victim being
killed by the offenders who might think that leaving her alive could send them
to the gallows
- The provision of death penalty creates a tool that is unlikely to be used
against rapists of children; there has not been any execution in India for a
non-terror capital crime since August 14, 2004
Source: tribuneindia.com, January 7, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
