The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the Centre on a petition seeking action against growing incidents of rape in the country by increasing awareness about rape laws and rights available to women under various laws, by introducing it as part of school curriculum.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud issued notice on the petition filed by senior advocate Aabad Harshad Ponda, who appeared in person and said that the recent rape and murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata was the motivation behind filing the petition. He said that while states are introducing laws to make rape punishable with death or life imprisonment, such an approach will not be fruitful unless the problem is addressed at the grassroot level.
Ponda, a noted criminal lawyer practicing in the Bombay high court, said, ” Repeated rapes in the country do not speak well about good governance and effective implementation of the law. The problem is not being addressed from the grassroot level of the real cause for the same. The element of justice lies in filling up the gap of communication between the existence of the laws which are made by the legislature and the proper communication and dissemination of the laws to all sections of the society,”
He told the court that the uneducated, poor population in the country should be made aware of what is rape, potential of laws to act as deterrence as it is a matter of grave concern that every day, crimes of rape are being reported from some part of the country.
His petition referred to the laws introduced by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh seeking mandatory death sentence for rape and murder that is awaiting Presidential assent and the one recently introduced by West Bengal.
“The endeavour of these states is to treat rape as equivalent to murder and to punish the offence with the minimum sentence of life imprisonment or death sentence. Even if such laws are enacted, the problem will not be solved since it is doubtful, based on past precedents whether such a punishment (of mandatory death sentence) would be considered legal and valid,” said the petition, filed by advocate Sandeep Sudhakar Deshmukh. Ponda cited the earlier rulings of the top court striking down similar provisions as unconstitutional while dealing with Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 27A of the Arms Act.
Section 303 that prescribed death sentence for any life convict who committed murder was struck down by the Supreme Court in Mithu v state of Punjab (1983) while Arms Act provision providing for death sentence for use of prohibited arms or ammunition was struck down in State of Punjab v Dalbir Singh (2012).
Other problems could also emerge as such drastic minimum punishment will disentitle persons from getting bail as there is always the possibility of such a provision being misused by unscrupulous litigants. Ponda said that every time a rape takes place reaction is not the right approach post the incidents but action prior to the incidents taking place.
He sought a host of directions directed against schools, local self-governance bodies and states by demanding that till a law is passed by Parliament, all educational institutions in the country (including government aided institutions providing free and compulsory education) to mandatorily incorporate in the syllabus for sex education, the penal laws of the country relating to rape and other offences against women and children under the IPC and POCSO Act.
The syllabus would also include subject of moral training to ensure awareness about sexual equality, the right of women and girls as well as freedom of girls to live with dignity just as boys without any interference and an endeavour to change the mindset of the boys in this country that must begin at the level of school, the petition said.
Ponda also stressed on increasing awareness of penal laws against women and children and to highlight equality between girls and boys, men and women through advertisements, seminars, pamphlets, etc and urged the media and social media platforms to regularly highlight the folly of committing rape, its punishments in different forms and educate the public about the legal remedies for such crimes.
