The Cabinet on Monday cleared the anti-rape Bill, keeping the age of consensual sex at 18 years. The government, which had last week proposed 16 years as the age of consent, changed its mind after two all-party meetings, where the “trend and mood” of all political parties was in favour of keeping the age at 18 years.
Faced with opposition from political parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) to its earlier proposal, the government agreed to amend the Bill to ensure it gets tabled in the Lok Sabha tomorrow. The Criminal Laws Amendment Bill, 2013, was drafted after the horrific Delhi gang-rape in last December.
The Cabinet has cleared another amendment which will introduce certain safeguards such as giving a one-year probation to a first-time offender, if the person is below 18 years.
The proposal for stringent punishments for voyeurism and stalking, vehemently objected to by SP and BJP, has been diluted, as it was prone to be misused. Now, both offences will be bailable for first-time offenders. However, repeat offenders would be denied bail and punishment would extend to a maximum of five years in jail.
The Bill had stated that disrobing a woman at a public place was a punishable offence, but with party leaders feeling the mention of public place was prone to misuse by offenders, the provision has now been amended to “disrobing a woman by force”, even at a private place, including a house a punishable offence, with a jail-term of up to seven years.
As a party senior said: “The trend and mood of the house is to keep 18 years as the age for consensual sex.”
Parties such as SP and BJP, from the beginning itself, have been opposed to lowering the age to 16 years. Others like the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which till the morning had been advocating for reducing the age to 16 years, decided to throw in their lot with the others by afternoon.
“BJP is in favour of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill and wants it to be passed without any delay. We wanted the age of consent to be 18 years. The government has agreed to this,” party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters.
The Centre is keen to have the Bill passed in Parliament before the end of this Budget session, as the Ordinance on it lapses by April 4.
