Validity of Child Gang-Rape Law

A 29-year-old man who is currently serving a life sentence for the gang rape of a nine-year-old in Maharashtra has filed a petition in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court will review the constitutionality of a statute that sentences a convicted man to death or life in prison for gang raping a child under the age of 12 without giving him the opportunity to repent or change.

The issue highlighted in the petition:

Limit the trial judge's options:

• It was argued that Section 376DB of the Indian Penal Code (gang rape of a child under 12 years of age) limited the trial judge's options to the death penalty or a sentence for the balance of the person's natural life. for more Laws regarding rape
• The minimum obligatory punishment under the law is, however, life in jail.

Anomaly in 2018 Amendment:

• The petitioner additionally stated that the sentence framework created by the criminal amendments implemented in August 2018 had an anomaly.
• When the penal code was revised in 2018 to establish stronger punishments for the crime of rape, Section 376DB was added.

Arbitrariness:

• Section 376-AB mandated a 20-year minimum punishment for anyone found guilty of raping a child under the age of 12.
• While Section 376-DB mandates a minimum sentence of life in prison for each of the individuals participating in the gang rape of a child under the age of 12.
• The death sentence was the harshest punishment offered in both parts.
• A person in his twenties who receives a life sentence without the possibility of parole could spend 60–70 years in prison.

Violation of the right to life:

• Under Section 376DB, the trial court was only given the choice of the life sentence or the more severe punishment of the death sentence.

• The petition claimed that Section 376DB violated the Constitution's Articles 21 (right to life) and 14 (right to equality).

Global Scenario:

• In the case of Winter v. the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights determined that a life sentence without the possibility of release violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
• It was decided that life sentences could not be regarded as just punishment since they offered the prisoner no chance to atone and were incompatible with respect for human dignity.
• The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that in exceptional circumstances, a disproportionate sentence violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

View of the Supreme Court

• The SC bench stated that this issue needed to be taken into consideration because the SC had previously declared the mandatory death penalty provision to be unconstitutional.
• Additionally, it requested that the petitioner and a second solicitor general submit written arguments and suggestions regarding the matter.

Historical Overview:

• Additionally, the SC had held in Mithu Vs. Punjab in 1983 that Section 303 of the IPC was unconstitutional to the degree that it mandated the death penalty for murderers who were already serving life sentences in prior cases.
• Courts were required by Section 303 to inflict the death penalty as the only sanction in these situations.

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