Home Minister Amit Shah today introduced 3 new bills to revamp the criminal justice system of India. These bills Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Billwill replace the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act respectively.
While announcing the new bills, the home minister announced a significant provision in the new bill that aims to tackle the growing menace of rape by deceit where men of one religion pretend to be someone else to trap girls and establish relations with them. Amit Shah said that a new crime has been introduced in the new law, under which, having sex with a woman by hiding real identity is defined as a crime.
In the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, crimes against women and children have been given precedence.
‘The act of establishing sexual relations with anyone by making false promises of marriage, job, promotion, or by expressing wrong identity, has been made a criminal offence for the first time by the Narendra Modi government,’ Amit Shah said in Lok Sabha amid applause from the members.
‘The act of establishing sexual relations with anyone by making false claims of marriage, job, promotion, or by expressing wrong identity, has been made a criminal offence for the first time by the Narendra Modi government,’ Amit Shah in Lok Sabha pic.twitter.com/n5TE1b1aPI
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The provision of criminalising sexual relations by hiding identity is a big step in tackling the menace of love jihad, where often Muslim youths pretend to be from other religions like Hindu or Sikh to trap non-Muslim women.
While establishing sexual relations in the promise of marriage was punishable under existing laws, there were no such explicit provisions for other incidents of sex by deceit, including hiding the identity. Therefore, such cases fell at the discretion of the courts, while in some cases the perpetrators were convicted, in other cases they were not. Now, as the new law will explicitly mention them as offences, convictions will increase.
The home minister also announced that all members of gang rape will invite a jail term of 20 years or life imprisonment. Apart from this, new provisions have been introduced for mob lynching and death sentence for rape of minors.
