By: Vijay Kumar Verma, Editor-ICN Group
The government’s move to bring an ordinance seeking death penalty for the rapists of girls below 12 years of age, is not being widely seen as a deterrent to the crime against women.
The criminal law amendment ordinance seeks to amend the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Evidence Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to introduce a new provision to sentence convicts of such crimes to death.
Existing provisions of the POCSO Act provide for life imprisonment, though after the Nirbhaya case in 2012 the Centre had introduced the death penalty in cases where a woman either dies or is left in a vegetative state after rape.
On the one side human rights activists have sprung up for (dignity in death) of the criminals (the term now also includes rapists, the offenders, and the culprits, against the punishment of Hanging till Death.
Not surprising that a PIL heard in the Supreme Court is seeking to protect the right of culprits ‘to die with dignity’ as the law aims to “violate the right to die”. It appears that the victims have no right to live or die with dignity.
The shameful acts have shameless defenders it appears. There are umpteen opinions against the promulgation of the ordinance which they advocate may not be a deterrent to the most heinous crime which is not only against the women but also against the very civility and humanity.
These activists perhaps are not concerned if the international organisations, the diaspora, the foreign nationals are seeking to save the dignity of women and that of the country. “India is a country of rapists” blurted a Japanese woman as I invited her to visit India some time ago. I hung my head with shame. Seriously I had no words to clarify. Some senior citizens when approached for their reactions on the subject opined for other punitive actions against such offenders.
Could there be other terms of punishment beyond the IPC, I wondered? Their valid points of discussions are more relevant to ponder over. ‘Recently we have seen how the UN sanctions have brought down Kim Jong Un on his knees and pressurised him to abandon his nuclear experimentations’. The North Korea and South Korea dialogue and the impending meeting with Donald Trump, they feel is the clear outcome of such sanctions. Didn’t it amount to victory of social boycott? Was not this a social deterrent?
Another group of womenfolk opined that if in case of a traffic offence by the underage children, their parents are equally held responsible. If the parents’ of minor children can be held responsible for the driving offences of their children, can’t they be equally held responsible for the more heinous crimes like outraging the modesty of women? Nevertheless our Prime Minister too has recently advocated for reigning in the boys by parents at home.He said that cultural values need to be imbibed amongst the youth to make them more responsible for a safe environment for daughters and asserted that the promulgation of an ordinance on rape showed the Centre did act on people’s outrage on sexual crimes against minors.
In not very recent past, an aged buddy recollected, the practice of social boycott of offenders at the village level used to be pronounced by the panchayats. It would sentence the offender with boycotts like; the village barber will not cut your heir; the village cobbler will not mend your shoes; or the village washer man will not wash your clothes. And in the recent past too the dictates’ of panchayats on marriage within the same gotra or within a particular community etc., have remained points of discussion among the activists as well as the public at large.
‘Drawing from such instances which may have proved beneficial in mending the society in one way or the other we can certainly consider the acts of social, economic and other similar sanctions against such offenders. In addition to the penal actions under the rules of law, such offenders as well as their parents must instantly lose their Aadhar card, driving licence, passport, ration card, social benefits of EWS/ BPL/Dalit, government or private job as well as opportunities to employment, certain thinkers opine. Such economic and social sanctions will certainly hold a lasting impact on the sick psyche of such offenders as well as their parents, they feel.
And the social activists must keep their pursuit of defending the dignity of the victims in life and in death but must appreciate the rights of sufferers before filing another PILs as a spanner to outrage the modesty of our failing legal health and stinking social systems.
Justice Bilal Nazki, chairman of the J&K Human Rights Commission, said that his “experience as a judge showed more stringent the punishment is, stricter is the degree of proof.”
“I am not sure if this ordinance is going to help. My experience as a judge is the more stringent punishment is, the higher the degree of proof becomes. If the judge thinks that he has to order someone’s execution, there cannot be an iota of doubt. Whenever you enhance the punishment, the conviction rate goes down,” said Justice Nazki.
Former Delhi High Court judge, Justice AP Shah too was strongly critical of the new ordinance and stated that “death penalty will divert the attention from other areas that need more focus and reform like crime investigation and prevention of crime”.
