The Hindu : Report on overhaul of rape laws gathering dust

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 03, 2002

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National

Report on overhaul of rape laws gathering dust

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI DEC. 2. An overhaul of the rape laws is not just the demand of women's organisations and a recommendation of the Law Commission of India. Even a government's task force advocated several changes in the rape laws as recently as April this year. But just like the earlier recommendations, the report of the Task Force on Women and Children also lies forgotten in the cobwebbed cupboards of various government departments though it had been set up by the Women and Child Department (WCD) with considerable fanfare in 2000.

Though not as far-reaching as the complete overhaul suggested by women's organisations or the recommendations of the Law Commission, the Task Force sought changes on four counts in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860. Set up under the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, K. C. Pant, in anticipation of Women's Empowerment Year in 2001, the mandate of the Task Force was to review all existing legislations and schemes pertaining to women. Of the four recommendations made by the Task Force vis-a-vis rape under the IPC, the most significant pertains to the definition of rape. It took the position that the definition of rape ought to be broadened to include all forms of sexual abuse. As per the recommendation, the Law Commission's proposed definition of "sexual assault" could be adopted in place of the existing definition of rape in Section 375 of the IPC as "it is wide, comprehensive and acceptable". However, like the Law Commission, the Task Force also stopped short of recommending the inclusion of marital rape in the new definition. Given that women's organisations and the National Commission for Women have been demanding the deletion of the exception clause in Section 375 of the IPC which states that "sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape", it took the view that there should be wider debate on this issue.

Besides, the Task Force has recommended raising the age of consent to 18 years, and enhancing the punishment for rape under Section 376 where the person knowingly transmits HIV/AIDS to the victim or where rape is combined with incest. In all, the Task Force reviewed 22 laws from the gender perspective. While 15 laws pertained to labour and employment, seven related to violence. But like Women's Empowerment Year and much of the gender-sensitive rhetoric, these recommendations, too, remain on paper.

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