Thank you
for the opportunity provided by Justice Verma committee to all the citizens of
India to write their views about making sexual assault laws meaningful in light of the heinous crime that was committed on Dec 16th in New Delhi. I
strongly feel that making punishment harder and giving wide publicity to such
laws will act as deterrent for sexual crimes. As it is said an ounce of
prevention is better than a ton of cure and hence I request the committee to
deliberate more about prevention of such crimes. Pls. find my suggestions under
the following headings
Prevention
Reporting
Investigation
Trial
Punishment
PREVENTION
1. Providing defense to the
defenseless should be the motto of new law
2. Eve-teasing should be dropped from
IPC and should be replaced with the word molestation
3. Not only rape but any kind of
sexual offence to any woman and child be made non bailable offense
4. The maximum sentence for sexual
offense should be death penalty
5. No sexual offense crime can be
punished for less than 20 years without the chance of parole earlier
6. All person above the age of
sixteen should be tried as adult for sexual offense
7. Every police station in India must
have at least one woman police officer at the level of Sub-Inspector and above
to co-ordinate the prevention and investigation of sexual offense
8. Establish a National Sex Offender
Database that can be accessed by any Indian national to become aware of such
individuals in their vicinity
9. Sex offenders who are released
from jail need to be on parole for the rest of their lives including reporting
to their home town police station every month for the rest of their lives
10.A charge sheeted sex offender
cannot stand for any public office unless finally acquitted by the courts
11.All persons holding any public
office and also accused of sexual harassment should be debarred from making any
public policy or vote on any public policy
12.Convicted sex offenders be allowed
to appeal only till the Supreme Court and no appeal can be filed after the
lapse of 3 month from the last sentence
13.Sex offenders must stay in jail
for the entire time of the judicial process including time for appeal
14.Proper police protection to be
provided to the victim on request
15.Media must volunteer to keep the
names of the victim anonymous unless requested by the victim to the contrary
REPORTING
1. Provide Internet and mobile access
to report crimes of sexual offense so that no one suffers from the humiliation
of verbal rape by the authorities. The victims should be able to lodge
complaint from the confines of their shelters.
2. A templatized complaint document
needs to be evolved for victims to report the crime in same standardized manner.
This templatized document should be available at all government offices and
hospitals including its availability on internet
3. All district and block hospitals in
addition to all public/private hospitals which has any in-patient facility should
be made nodal points for reporting any sex offence crime including the ability
to undergo medical check-up
4. This will help free-up the police
stations from managing such reporting and they can utilize more time in
policing and investigations
INVESTIGATION
1. No investigation officer should be
lower in designation than SHO in investigation of sexual offense
2. Proper training needs to be
imparted to all the police officers who qualify to investigate the sexual
offense crimes
3. All police captains must report
all sexual assault in their jurisdiction to the leading Newspaper in their area
once every quarter
4. Any lapses or lack of attention to
detail during investigation that results in acquittal of the sexual offenders
must be severely dealt with including stopping of promotion of the concerned
police office for next 5 year
TRIAL
1. There should be separate fast
track court to deal with sexual offense
2. All trials of sex offense must be
over within 90 days
3. Retired judges of
sessions/high/supreme court should be appointed to such fast track courts to
assist regular judges for the speedy trial
1. Maximum punishment as per the law
should be norm rather than exception
2. Once a convict goes through his
punishment, his details needs to be captured in the National Sex Offender
database and then remains on parole for life including reporting to home police
station once every month
3. Two strikes (two times found
guilty of sexual assault) should make the accused spend rest of his life behind
bars, if not jailed for life or awarded death sentence the first time
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