"Death penalty" for rape of children up to 12 years approved by the Cabinet

April 21, 2018

The Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today approved an ordinance to allow courts to award the death penalty to those convicted of raping children up to 12 years of age. The criminal law amendment ordinance seeks to amend the Indian Penal Code, the Evidence Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to introduce a new law to punish convicts of such crimes to death. The ordinance is being brought to enforce the amendment immediately before a bill is introduced and passed by Parliament. After the case of the 8-year-old Kathua victim, other instances, such as in Surat where a 9-year-old, apparently a victim of traffickers, was raped and killed, have added immediate urgency to the Centre's actions. The ordinance will now be sent to the President for his approval. The present provisions of the POCSO Act provide for life imprisonment although 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. Quite recently, 4 states had passed laws making the rape of a minor punishable by death. The Cabinet meet follows the Centre informing the Supreme Court on Friday that it proposed to amend POCSO to provide for the death penalty for aggravated sexual assaults on children below 12. Today's ordinance approved by Cabinet also stipulates minimum punishment in case of rape of women to increase from the rigorous imprisonment of 7 years to 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment. In case of rape of a girl under 16 years, minimum punishment has been increased from 10 years to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for rest of the life, which shall mean imprisonment till that person's natural life.