Justice Verma : Toast of the season - Sensitivity versus insensitivity
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 05, 2013 -

Bouquets for Justice JS Verma and the Committee he headed. Not exactly brickbats for the Government, but no bouquets either.

In just 29 days the Justice JS Verma Commission has come out with a slew of recommendations which the Government has been sleeping on for decades.

In 29 days, the Commission has shown the sensitivity which successive Governments down the decades had failed to demonstrate.

In replacing the term 'rape' with 'sexual assault', the Justice JS Verma Commission has sought to do away with the term 'penile penetration' and this in effect should mean that the law recognises the sense of humiliation that any woman is subjected to when she is groped and subjected to sexual innuendos.

It should also neutralise the trend, wherein the onus to proof that a woman has been sexually molested or assaulted is left on the woman and should also go a long way in shielding women from uncomfortable questions raised by sleazy policemen.

Definitely heartening to see that the Commission has deemed it proper to expand the definition of sexual crimes against women, by including stalking, voyeurism, acid attacks, indecent gestures and inappropriate touching.

The sense of purpose with which Justice JS Verma went about in preparing the recommendations is unmistakable.

That the Verma Committee did not favour the death penalty for rapists is another matter, but the speed in which the recommendations were drafted and the sensitivity demonstrated is clearly path breaking.

While we reserve our opinion on whether death penalty should be awarded to rapists or not, the observation of the Committee may be seen against the backdrop of the international trend wherein many countries and States have done away with the death penalty.

The Justice JS Verma Commission is the toast of the country at the moment, but the same cannot be said of the Government.

While the Commission exhibited rare far sightedness and sensitivity in suggesting that security forces and policemen who commit sexual crimes against women should not be extended the immunity granted by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Government has stone walled this suggestion.

Refusing to acknowledge that a rapist is a rapist and a rape is a rape.

Rape in the line of duty ? Much like saying that Delhi can decide whether a rape can be justified.

This in effect means that while a security personnel or a policeman who commits rape in parts of the country where the Army Act is not in force will be treated like any other rapists, the same will not hold true if women living in places where AFSPA has been enforced are raped.

In other words this may amount to saying that women in the North East and Jammu and Kashmir can be raped by security personnel in the line of duty !

On second thoughts, the stoic refusal of the Government to entertain the recommendation of the Justice JS Verma Commission should not come as a shocker or a surprise, given the fact that AFSPA is nothing but a license given to the security personnel to shoot and kill merely on suspicion.

When everyone is a potential victim of this Act, why make an exception for women, who may be sexually molested, apparently is the argument put forward by the Government.