Kathua Rape Case Judgement And Laws In India Against Rape
BACKGROUND
Rape is a sexual assault or forcefully performed sexual intercourse with someone. The Kathua rape case judgement has attracted the people to revisit their perceptions considering laws in India against rape. According to Indian Penal Code, rape is committed by a man against women when he, against her will and without her consent, or when she is intoxicated engages in any sexual act with her or inserts any object or part of the body into her vagina or makes her do so. Rape as a crime had always been there in all the societies although the definition and punishment for it was never the same. the issue came more into limelight after the Kathua Rape Case Judgement came from the court.
The Actus Reus of the crime, that was accepted, was insertion of penis into vagina and that is the sole reason why the very notion of woman forcing a man into sex was rejected by the society. But as society evolved definitions and concepts also went through many changes, punishment for rape, method and mind-set for rape and many more but the whole thing still exist in the society that too, in a hugely enlarged form. According to a report of
National Crime Records Bureau there were more than 24,000 rape committed in India in 2012. The rate of rape in India has increased to the extent that it had become the 4
th most committed crime of India against women.
RAPE LAWS IN INDIA
In India, based on the increased rate of rapes occurring, there are several strict laws which are constituted. According to Indian Penal Court, any man if willfully and without the consent of the woman engages in any sexual activity with her or forces her or makes her do so is said to commit rape.
Punishment to such a person who commits rape to a woman will be imprisonment that will not be any less than seven years but may extend up to ten years or for life and will be followed by fine until and unless the woman is not his wife and is not of less than 12 years of age. And if the crime is committed against a girl less than 12 years of age or has committed gang rape or is police officer and committed the offence with woman in her custody or any other mention in section 375(2) of IPC will be liable for not less than 12 years but which can extend to imprisonment of life.
If
the girl has willingly invited the boy for any sexual act and is less than 14years it will be counted as rape. As held in
Mathura case, the police officer was released by Supreme Court because there was no injury on girl's body and was considered as consensual because she was used to engage in sexual
offences regularly. But now such questions fall under clause fifth of thedefinition which was stated in the case of
State of Punjab Vs. Gurmit Singh by Supreme Court that the accused was
liable under section 376, IPC.
Engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman faking promising of marriage and not fulfilling it comes under rape and hence, is punishable under section 376.There have been many improvements and amendments in IPC in reference to rape, abduction and murder in the recent time assuring justice to the victims. Apart from that, there are many acts established like POCSO act which significantly criminalized rape, grievous sexual assault, marital rape and other offences against children and indecent assault. Punishment given to accuses of
Delhi rape case 2014 i.e. death penalty was a proof of fair and improving justice system towards rape victims. Therefore it can be concluded that the laws in India are there which prevents rape victim and strictly treat it as a heinous crime.
KATHUA RAPE CASE and JUDGEMENT
Asifa,an 8 year old girl, was abducted on 10
th January 2018 while she was grazing her horses, raped for a week, and murdered. After the forensic test it came out to be that she was drugged with clonazepam, dragged and was repeatedly raped by several men. And at end, she was hit by heavy stones on her head and later killed. It was found that she was held captive and raped in a temple(devasthan) by the priest of that temple Sanji Ram, his son Vishal, his nephew who was a juvenile and friend Deepak Khajuria. It was also found and proved that Tilak Raj, Anand Dutta and Surender Verma, who were in the police,destroyed the evidence of the case.
The Kathua Rape issue was made a political agenda and many political parties and groups actively participated in this campaign. An organization called “Hindi Ekta Dal” was formed by the supporters of accused who protested for their innocence. Two of the BJP members also attended this protest and were criticised and later resigned. Many lawyers tried to block the chargesheets from reaching the courts and FIR was filed against them. Asifa’s father withdrew advocate Deepika because she was being threatened and thus never managed to appear in the court for her hearings. Due to the unsafe environment in kathua, Supreme Court ordered to transfer the case in Pathankot district and session court. Reason behind the rape came out to be that Asifa belonged to a minority group of Jammu and Kashmir and the huge reason behind it was to create a sense of terror among the people of her tribe.
The Kathua rape case judgement was concluded on 10
th June and the District and Session judge of Pathankot convicted six out of seven accused leaving Vishal giving him a benefit of doubt on the basis of the plea of alibi that he was giving his exam in U.P on the said date. Trial for juvenile is pending in the high court of Jammu and Kashmir. The quantum of punishment for the 6 accused was decided to be life imprisonment under section 302 ( murder ) under Ranbir Penal Code plus 25 years of imprisonment for the offence of gang rape under section 376D of the code to Sanji Ram, Deepak Khajuria and Parvesh Kumar. For destroying crucial evidence of the case under 201 of the code, the other three accused Tilak Raj, Anand Dutta and Surender Verma were sentenced to 5 years in jail.
CONCLUSION
Therefore, As a conclusion the Kathua rape case judgement declared on 10th of June 2019 came out to be an applause for Indian judiciary as this verdict was able to maintain the trust of people on Indian Democracy. This whole case was a clear case of how truth was being supressed; people fighting for justice were forced to surrender. Moreover, political parties used the issue as agenda to fight upon their vote banks. This verdict though being satisfactory still isn’t justifiable because crime like gang rape, murder and kidnapping all together are much bigger crimes which cannot be compensated by mere imprisonment because of the heinous nature and the way it was down. To sum up the issue, it can be said that justice has been provided to the country in its ultimate form.
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