NEW DELHI: In the wake of public outrage over the Kathua rape-and-murder case where the victim was a minor, the Cabinet is likely to consider an ordinance on Saturday to amend the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to provide for the death penalty for the rape of children below the age of 12.
The ordinance is being initiated to enforce the amendment immediately before a bill is introduced and passed by Parliament. After the case of the eightyear-old Kathua victim, other instances, such as in Surat where a nine-year-old, apparently a victim of traffickers, was raped and killed, have added urgency to the government’s actions.
Existing provisions of the POCSO Act provide for life imprisonment, though 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.
Recently, four states 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.
Responding to a PIL filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava seeking deterrent punishment to curb the growing incidents of sexual assaults on minor girls, additional solicitor general P S Narasimha handed over to the SC bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud a letter from the ministry of women and child development promising to amend the POCSO Act.
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