High time Delhi govt brings strict laws for sexual offenders: Court

A court here has asked the Delhi government to consider bringing in stringent laws to curb rampant sexual offences against women and children in the national capital.
The modesty of a woman has to be "strongly guarded" as the crime of sexual harassment is not only against her but also against the society at large, the court observed while awarding a three-month jail term to a 62-year-old man for molesting and threatening a woman here in 2014.
"The offence, under section 354A (sexual harassment) of the IPC, committed by the accused is a crime not only against the woman but also against the society at large and modesty of a woman has to be strongly guarded," it said.

The court noted that no doubt the accused was aged and was neither involved in a similar complaint nor previously convicted but such offenders have to be dealt with sternly.
"Looking to the rampant and increasing prevalence of crimes of sexual violence, molesting of woman in Delhi and other places, it is high time that the state of NCT of Delhi became sensitive to this grave issue and consider imposing stringent laws for putting a check on such crimes of sexual violence against women and children," Special Judge Satinder Kumar Gautam said.
The sessions court verdict came on the appeal of the state against a magisterial court's order, passed in February this year, acquitting Amarjeet Singh of offences of sexually harassing and threatening the woman in whose premises he was running a shop in southeast Delhi.

A magisterial court had on February 15 acquitted the man after accepting his contention that the woman and her mother had lodged a false case as their motive was to get the shop vacated.

The sessions court, however, reversed the judgement, and convicted and sentenced him to three months in jail, already spent by him during trial.
According to the prosecution, the woman had lodged a police complaint that she was sexually harassed and abused by the man, her tenant, on March 1, 2014.
A case was registered for offences under sections 354A (sexual harassment), 506 (threatening), 509(outraging modesty of a woman) and 352 (assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation) of the IPC.

The man had sought leniency on the ground that he has remained in judicial custody for over three months and has faced trial for over two years.