Andhra Pradesh Disha Bill, 2019

SOCIETY

TOPIC:General Studies 1:

• Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

Andhra Pradesh Disha Bill, 2019

Context:

• The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly passed the Andhra Pradesh Disha Bill, 2019 (Andhra Pradesh Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2019).
• Disha is the name given to the veterinarian who was raped and murdered in Hyderabad.

Highlights:

• The bill provides for awarding death sentence for offences of rape and gangrape and expediting trials of such cases to within 21 days.
• At present, provision for punishing an offender in a rape case is a fixed jail term leading to life imprisonment or the death sentence.
• Completion of investigation in seven days and trial in 14 working days, where there is adequate conclusive evidence.
• Reducing the total judgment time to 21 days from the existing four months.
• The existing judgment period as per the Nirbhaya Act, 2013 and Criminal Amendment Act, 2018 is 4 months (two months of investigation period and two months of trial period)
• The AP Disha Act also prescribes life imprisonment for other sexual offences against children and includes Section 354 F and 354 G in IPC.
• Two years imprisonment for the first conviction and four years for second and subsequent convictions for cases of social media harassment.
• The Government of Andhra Pradesh prescribes life imprisonment for other sexual offences against children.
• At present,in cases of molestation/sexual assault on children under the POCSO Act, 2012, punishment ranges from a minimum of three years to maximum of seven years of imprisonment.
• Andhra Pradesh government will establish, operate and maintain a register in electronic form, to be called the ‘Women & Children Offenders Registry’.
• This registry will be made public and will be available to law enforcement agencies.

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2017 report:

• A total of 3,59,849 cases were reported against women in 2017.( 2016, 3.38 lakh , 3.2 lakh cases 2015) The number of cases reported has increased.
• Uttar Pradesh has again topped the list with 56,011 cases of crime against women, followed by Maharashtra with 31,979 cases and West Bengal at 30,002.
• Crimes against women constitute murder, rape, dowry death, suicide abetment, acid attack, cruelty against women and kidnapping.
• ‘Cruelty by husband or his relatives’ accounts for 27.9 per cent of the crimes against women.
• ‘Assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty’ comprise 21.7 per cent, followed by ‘kidnapping and abduction of women’ with 20.5 per cent and ‘rape’ with 7.0 per cent of reported cases.

Rape data:

• ‘Rape’ stands with 7.0 per cent of reported cases.
• A total of 32,559 rapes were reported in 2017 in India.
• Madhya Pradesh has recorded the highest number of rape cases at 5,562 cases being reported in 2017. Uttar Pradesh is second to MP.
• Delhi, saw a decline in reporting of rape cases, in 2017, 13,076 were reported, which is the lowest in the last three years.
• 1 percent cases the accused were known to the victims.
• Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura can be seen as moderately safer than other states as they recorded the lowest number of cases.

Conclusion:

Make the criminal justice system tougher on an offender committing sexual crimes against women and children.

Connecting the dots:

• Don’t you think acts of sexual violence are deeply traumatic for survivors, and that it takes great courage and faith in the system to report them?