Anti-rape law hangs for lack of consensus

Amid persisting differences in the cabinet, the prime minister referred the home ministry’s draft law against rape and other crimes to an empowered group of ministers (EGoM), headed by finance minister P Chidambaram.

The minister got cracking and convened a two-hour meeting in his office. He is expected to complete the work by Wednesday evening and the bill will be ready to go before the Union cabinet on Thursday.

“The sections that we have covered... all points of view have been taken into account and reconciled and a final version of the clause has emerged. We can do that for the remaining sections as well,” Chidambaram told reporters after chairing the meeting.

Parliamentary  affairs minister Kamal Nath spoke to BJP’s Sushma Swaraj and proposed an all-party meeting on March 18 to sort out the differences in the draft bill before it is introduced in the Lok Sabha, possibly on the 19th.

The other members in the EGoM are home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, law minister Ashwani Kumar, women and child welfare minister Krishna Tirath and telecom minister Kapil Sibal.
At Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Tirath objected to reducing the age for consensual sex from 18 to 16.

She said lowering the age would have a cascading effect on other laws. She  also insisted on using the term “sexual assault” — used in the February 3 ordinance — instead of replacing it with “rape”.

Kumar said provisions pertaining to voyeurism and stalking could be misused to file false complaints. Sibal, who is also a senior lawyer, termed the bill language “too loose” which may not stand “legal scrutiny”.

After the cabinet meeting, Kumar told reporters: “There is a need to make the law civil, so that it’s not used for corruption. We will bring this law before March 22 in this budget session.”

Shinde too expressed confidence that the bill would be passed in the budget session.

@DNA