Question:
Give a literature review on Gang-Rape case laws.
Answer:
A 23-year-old Delhi based physiotherapy student was gang raped on a moving bus on December 16 in Munirka close to South Delhi. The incident took place when the victim along with a male friend had entered a private bus where the victim was gang raped and tortured by six men including the driver who were already present in the bus[1]. The six men also hit the male friend on the head throwing him outside the bus and pulling the victim to the rear end of the bus where she was raped by 6 six men which including juvenile accused too. This incident created a lot of outrage in India and abroad as the victim was throws to lie on the streets of Delhi naked where help reached her hours after the incidents. After the victim was gang-raped, she was brutally injured by these six men and eventually after a life struggle of almost fifteen days, she died due to her severe injuries. The six men were arrested and charged with the offence of gang rape, sexual assault and murder. However, one accused kill himself inside the jail and the other accused who was a juvenile offender was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in the reform facility. The remaining accused was sentenced to death by hanging. On appeal, the higher court upheld the guilty verdict by the lower courts along with the death sentence. As the sexual assault incidents have rapidly increased in India, a committee was set to discuss appropriate ways to amend the laws relating the investigation and prosecution, which takes place in a sexual assault cases. The procedural part of these cases were suggested to be amended to make it quicker and more comfortable for the victim and their families. The sexual assault cases were suggested to be heard in the fast-track courts and the number of these courts was suggested to be increased in number throughout India. Another incident of gang rape was found in Kamduni about 20 km from Kolkata. In this case, a 20-year-old girl was abducted while she was returning home from college in the afternoon. She was then taken to an isolated factory where she was gang raped by nearly nine men. After raping her, the nine men tore her legs apart, slitting her throat and threw her away. It is evident that the brutal nature of the sexual offenders in India requires some serious law amendments, which create fear in the eyes of the offenders refraining them from committing the shameful crime[2].
Even the United Kingdom has witnessed gang-rape incidents, out of which a gang rape of a university student by three Somalian men was most highlighted. In this case, 20-year-old Somalian men trapped a 16-year-old girl in a Room 38 of a hotel in Rusholme where she was gang-raped. The Manchester CrownCourt sentenced them for a total of 29 years. Another incident, which took place in the United Kingdom, was when an Austrian tourist was gang raped by eight eighteen years old boys. Therefore, be it India or United Kingdom, the sexual assault incidents are present everywhere and need quick and appropriate reforms to stop the shameful offence[3].
Reference List
Roychowdhury, Poulami. “” The Delhi Gang Rape”: The Making of International Causes.” Feminist studies 39.1 (2013): 282-292.
Sinha, Kanad. “Be It Manu, Be It Macaulay: Indian Law and the Problem of the Female Body.” J. Indian L. & Soc’y 5 (2014): 61.
STATE v RAM SINGH & ORS [2013] IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI (IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI)
