The Government is planning to hold a special Cabinet meeting next week to consider the anti-rape legislation, which could not be taken up by the Cabinet on Thursday as differences persisted among ministries over reducing the age of consent from 18 years to 16 years and replacing the term “sexual assault” with “rape”.
The Government’s efforts to build political consensus on another important legislation, the land Acquisition Bill, failed as an all-party meeting remained inconclusive with differences persisting between the Government and the Opposition over various amendments, especially those pertaining to the role of the Government in land acquisition.
However, the Cabinet approved the Right of Citizens for Time-Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011.
“A special meeting of the Cabinet will be held soon. Most probably next week to take a call on the anti-rape legislation,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath said.
The Criminal law Amendment Bill, already cleared by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, has to be approved by Parliament to replace the Ordinance promulgated by the Government following the gruesome gang-rape of a physiotherapy student on December 16 in the Capital.
Nath claimed that the law Ministry sent the Bill late, due to which it could not be taken up in the Cabinet on Thursday.
However, sources revealed that differences persisted in the Cabinet over the Home Ministry’s note to reduce the age of consent from 18 to 16 years. One section of the Government is in favour of reducing the age of consent on the grounds that since youngsters experiment with sex earlier these days, it is necessary to decriminalize the act so as to prevent their harassment by cops. They even wanted the age of consent to be further reduced to 15 years, but the more conservative section is against lowering the age of consent.
Similarly, the Home Ministry conceding the demand of women activists to replace the term sexual assault with rape to ensure that the crime did not remain gender neutral so as to prevent its misuse against women, also did not find favour with some ministers who insisted on equality before law. Also differences persisted over including voyeurism as sexual abuse, sources said.
However, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari made light of the Bill not coming in the Cabinet, saying that by promulgating an Ordinance the Government has shown its commitment to protect women from sexual assault.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet approved the Right of Citizens for Time-Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011 aimed to provide services like passport, ration card, pension, birth and death certificate in a time-bound manner.
It envisages penalty of up to `50,000 against a Government official failing to fulfill his or her duties.
The Bill lays down an obligation upon every public authority to publish citizen’s charter, stating therein the time within which specified goods shall be supplied and services be rendered and provides for a grievance redressal mechanism for non-compliance of its provisions. It mandates a public authority to establish a call centre, customer care centre, help desk and people’s support system to ensure time- bound delivery of services.
It also seeks establishment of public grievance redressal commission at the Centre and in every State. A person aggrieved by the decision of the commission may prefer an appeal before the lokpal and lokayuktas.