Cabinet approves death penalty for rapists of children
Economic fugitives’ assets to be seized
NEWDELHI: The Union cabinet, at a meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi, on Saturday approved the promulgation of a pair of vastly different but crucial ordinances. One will allow the courts to punish with the death sentence people convicted of raping children below 12 years, and the other will empower law enforcement agencies to seize the assets of economic offenders who have fled India to escape trial.
The ordinances will take effect after President Ram Nath Kovind approves them, which he is widely expected to. “The whole process will take a day or two,” said a government spokesperson.
The Criminal Law (Amendment) ordinance, 2018, comes in the backdrop of nationwide outrage over the brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua of Jammu and Kashmir and alleged rape of a minor in Unnao in UP by a BJP legislator. A slew of child rape and murder cases have been reported from across the country in recent days.
Currently, the maximum punishment for aggravated sexual assault on minors under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act), 2012 is life imprisonment. The law came into force in 2012 and deals with sexual offences against those below 18 years. The IPC prescribes death penalty for gang rape.
To enforce the change, amend-
ments will be made in the criminal law and POCSO Act. “An insertion will be made in section 376 of IPC providing for death penalty for rape of a girl below 12 years and in case of gang rape of a girl below 16 years, death penalty for all the rapists,” said a senior government official who did not want to be named.
Saturday’s cabinet decision will also put in place a slew of other measures including amendments in the CrPC for ensuring speedy investigation
and trial of rape cases, and the creation of a database of sex offenders, a senior Union women and child development ministry official said on condition of anonymity. “It gives me immense satisfaction as a lawyer today. A depraved crime perpetuated against an innocent child can only invite death penalty,” said Alakh Alok Srivasta, who filed a PIL in January demanding the death penalty for child rapists.
Amnesty International and a clutch of child activists opposed t the central government’s ordinance.
“The government’s decision to introduce death penalty through an ordinance is a knee-jerk reaction that diverts attention from the poor implementation of laws on rape and child protection,” Asmita Basu, programmes director, Amnesty International India, said. “Studies have shown that most perpetrators are ’known’ to child victims. Introducing the death penalty in such circumstances will only silence and further endanger children. Both the Justice Verma Committee and India’s Law Commission have questioned the deterrent value of death penalty in preventing crimes.”
The ordinance on the seizure of the assets of fugitive economic offenders follows the flight of jeweller Nirav Modi who, along with his associates, is alleged to have defrauded Punjab National Bank to the tune of around ₹12,000 crore. In March last year, businessman Vijay Mallya flew out of India to the UK as lenders closed in on him to recover upwards of ₹9,000 crore owed by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines; extradition proceedings have been launched against Mallya in London.
“It is expected that a special forum to be created for expeditious confiscation of the proceeds of crime, in India or abroad, would coerce the fugitive to return to India to submit to the jurisdiction of Courts in India to face the law in respect of scheduled offences,” a government spokesperson said.
The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in the budget session, but with the second leg of the session lost to disruptions, it could not be passed.
The law will apply to defaulters who have outstanding debt of Rs 100 crore or more and have left the country. It proposes to enable authorities to attach the property of these “fugitive economic offenders” and the proceeds of their crimes.
Since the approved law would lead to use of the existing infrastructure of special courts constituted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and the threshold of scheduled offences is high at Rs 100 crore or more, no additional expenditure is expected to be incurred after the enactment of the ordinance, the spokesperson added.