The Supreme Court on Friday sought response of the Centre on a plea seeking action against rising rape incidents in the country by making it part of school curriculum and increasing awareness about rape laws and rights available to women under various laws.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud issued notice on the plea filed by senior advocate Aabad Harshad Ponda, who appeared in person and said that the recent rape and murder of a junior doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College was the motivation behind filing the plea. He said that while states are making laws to punish rape with death or life imprisonment, such an approach will not be fruitful unless the problem is addressed at the ground level.
“The frequent rapes in the country do not speak well about good governance and effective implementation of law. The real cause of the problem is not being addressed at the grassroots level. The element of justice lies in bridging the communication gap between the existence of laws made by the legislature and proper communication and dissemination of the laws to all sections of society,” said Ponda, a renowned criminal lawyer practising in the Bombay High Court.
He told the court that the uneducated, poor population of the country should be made aware about rape and also how much capacity the law has to prevent rape as it is a matter of serious concern that every day news of rape crime is coming from one part or the other of the country.
His petition referred to laws by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh seeking mandatory death penalty for rape and murder, which are awaiting Presidential assent, and a law recently introduced by West Bengal.
“The attempt of these states is to equate rape with murder and impose a minimum punishment of life imprisonment or death penalty for the offence. Even if such laws are made, the problem will not be resolved, as based on past precedents, it is doubtful whether such punishment (mandatory death penalty) would be considered legal and valid,” the plea filed by advocate Sandeep Sudhakar Deshmukh said. Ponda cited earlier verdicts of the apex court terming similar provisions unconstitutional while dealing with Section 303 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 27A of the Arms Act.
Section 303, which provided death penalty for anyone convicted of murder for life, was struck down by the Supreme Court in Mithu v State of Punjab (1983), while the provision in the Arms Act providing death penalty for use of prohibited arms or ammunition was struck down in State of Punjab v Dalbir Singh (2012).
Other problems may also crop up as such a stringent minimum sentence will deter people from getting bail as there is always a possibility of this provision being misused by unscrupulous litigants. Ponda said that every time a rape happens, the right way is not to react after the incident but to act before the incident happens.
They sought a slew of directions against schools, local self-governance bodies and states, demanding that all educational institutions in the country (including government-aided institutions providing free and compulsory education) must mandatorily include the country’s penal laws relating to rape and other crimes against women and children under the IPC and the POCSO Act in sex education curriculum until a law is passed by Parliament.
The petition states that the curriculum will also include the subject of moral training to ensure awareness about gender equality, rights of women and girls as well as the freedom of girls to live with equal dignity as boys without any interference and to try and change the mindset of boys in this country which should start from the school level itself.
Ponda also stressed on raising awareness about penal laws against women and children and highlighting 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 punishment in various forms and educate the public about the legal remedies for such crimes.
