The age of consensual sex will be lowered from 18 to 16, a Group of Ministers (GoM) recommended on Wednesday after warring Ministries sorted out their differences over some key provisions of the Criminal laws (Amendment) Bill. The Bill will come up before the Union Cabinet on Thursday.
The age of consensual sex was one of the highly contentious provisions in the Bill. To develop consensus among related Ministries, the Bill was referred to the GoM on Tuesday. Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath had been opposing any move to lower the age of consent.
“We have gone through every provision of the proposed Bill and all issues have been resolved. Now the matter will go to the Cabinet and hopefully it will be passed on Thursday,” Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters. The GoM, chaired by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, also recommended that sustained stalking be made a non-bailable offence while the first offense of voyeurism could be a bailable offence, sources said.
Repeat offences of voyeurism, inappropriate touch, gesture and remarks have been recommended as non-bailable offences, they said.
The GoM also decided to retain the term ‘rape’ in the Bill and make it gender-specific, instead of the proposal to make it gender-neutral.
Provisions seeking strong action against those filing false complaints were dropped from the draft Bill, the sources said adding that there was consensus in the GoM that existing laws were adequate for dealing with such cases and it was only a matter of enforcing them.
The Bill will replace Criminal laws Ordinance promulgated on February 3 in the wake of public outrage over the December 16 Delhi gang-rape.
The Ordinance has to be approved by Parliament before its recess from March 22, failing which it would lapse on April 4.
The Bill retains a key provision of the Ordinance under which if rape leads to death of the victim or leaves her in a vegetative state, it can also attract the death penalty.
The minimum punishment is 20 years in jail which may extend upto the “natural life” of the convict.