Death penalty for rape of minor: New Bill to replace IPC bats for stringent measures

Raping a minor girl may attract the death penalty for perpetrators while sexual intercourse or sexual acts with one's own wife who is below 18 years will be considered rape, a new Bill that proposes to repeal the existing Indian Penal Code (IPC) says.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Friday, however, does not criminalise marital rape, a demand that has been made from a section of activists.

Sex on the pretext of false promise of marriage, employment, promotion and false identity has been made a crime for the first time, while 20 years of imprisonment or life imprisonment has been mandated in all cases of gang-rape.

"Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape," an explanatory note to the definition of rape under Section 63 has been provided in the Bill. In the extant law, it is 15 years.

Those men having sex with a woman through "deceitful means or making by promise to marry" without any intention of fulfilling the same could face imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine.

Those people who print or publish the name or any matter which may make known the identity of a rape survivor may face a jail term of up to two years and will also be liable to pay a fine.

According to the Bill, if a woman dies after the rape or it causes the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state, the convict shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person's natural life, or with death.

"In this law, special care has been taken of women and children, it has been ensured that criminals are punished and the police cannot misuse their powers," Shah said adding, in the current laws heinous crimes like murder or crime against women were placed very low and crimes like treason, robbery and attack on the official of the government were kept above these. "We are changing this approach and the first chapter in these new laws will be on crimes against women and children," he said.