Open Access Research Article
Indian Penal Code Vis-à-vis Gender Specific Laws: An Analysis - BY Shivani Agarwal and Anurag Choudhary
Published Paper
Article Details
Indian
Penal Code Vis-à-vis Gender Specific
Laws: An Analysis
Authored by - Shivani Agarwal
E-Mail:- Agarwalshivani1819@gmail.com
Co author -
Anurag Choudhary
E-Mail:- Anuragchoudhary653@gmail.com
Student of
BA.L.LB, Sardar Patel Subharti Institute of Law,
Meerut Author can be contacted through:
SUBMITTED TO- Editor-in-
chief, International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
ABSTRACT
India is a country
where our Constitutional framers provided Equality of Status, of opportunity to
every citizen, however one of the most fundamental equality- Equality in the
Criminal Justice System is ignored by legislators. The roots of Gender inequality
were rooted a long time ago, but the preconceived notions of society have paved
way to the evils of Gender Inequality. India is a patriarchal society which means that men hold the primary
power in society and there is a domination of men over the women, but with the
rise in feminists’ movement, women were able to get equal status in the eyes of
Law and Society. The J.S Verma Committee way back in 2013 came up with view
point to make certain criminal laws as gender-neutral but it was denied. Laws
concerning issues such as sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism, most
importantly Rape are gender-specific in nature. It means that our Criminal
Justice System rejects the notion of man being the victim of any of these
crimes. If we consider women and man on same pedestal, then it needs to be
questioned that why laws are women-centric. It is important to observe Whether
we stand on the touchstone of Article 14?.To achieve gender-neutral criminal
laws in India, we must try to bring a change by re- examine various laws. In
this paper, author has analyzed our criminal justice system in light of
Gender-Specific Laws.
Keywords: Gender-
Neutral Laws, Women, Criminal Justice System, IPC
INTRODUCTION
As Anna Scales
said – Injustice does not flow directly from recognizing differences; injustice
results when those differences are transformed into social and economic
deprivation[2]
The beauty of our
preamble is that it recognizes Social Solidarity and thus begins with ‘WE THE
PEOPLE’. Preamble is said to be the heart and soul of the World’s longest and
Bulkiest Constitution. We as a country shifted from the concept of laissez
faire to ‘Welfare State’ to attain social development, along with equal
opportunity for all. At the time of independence, the women were subjected to discrimination
and were denied many opportunities unlike the men. Therefore, to achieve the
same our Constitution forefathers added the fundamental concept of Equality and
thus impliedly injected the concept of Rule of Law under Article 14 of the
Constitution of India. With the advent of time, judiciary played a parental
role for uplifting the rights of all sections of the society and pronounced
landmark judgments in this light.
As they say ‘Learn
the past, Watch the present, and create the future.
In the past and till today, our Criminal Law portrays the idea to protect the
women from various crimes but as it is preached and practiced that the law is a means to social control where
even the protective discrimination is proportional to changing demands of
society, respectively. Thereby questioning the needs of present time, where men
are also prone and vulnerable to be attacked. What about their rights?
This comes from the roots of pseudo patriarchy where it was almost indigestible
to accept the possibility that a man too can be a victim of such crimes. Gone
are those days where Mard KO Dard NAHI Hota (Men do not feel pain)’ was lauded and applauded in theatres. A
person irrespective of their gender should be treated equally but due to
certain persisting loopholes in the criminal justice system the very essence of
our Constitution and Preamble seems to diminish. The framework of the system
portrays the fact in a manner that the men are supposed to be the protector and
a great example of masculinity. Therefore, laws for the protection of men are
non-essential. They are considered to be custodian of the society and a
protector does not require a shield of law for their defense.
The architect of the
Criminal Justice system framed it in a way that Men are envisaged as the
perpetrator of the crime, and not as the victim. Thus, it has resulted in a
belief that even a slight visualization of the word victim, a layman thinks of
a woman without an iota of doubt.
The Author’s analysis
states that the majority of the sections which have been incorporated under
Indian penal Code almost nullify the possibility of a man to be a victim thus
making them gender specific .However, for the present and future, our Criminal
law should focus not on laws which are precisely made on gender but on their
neutrality to protect ‘WE THE PEOPLE’.
Analysis of
Gender Neutral laws in light of Jurisprudence
Eugen Ehrlich in his theory has stated that it is neither the
legislations nor juristic decisions but the “society” which is the fundamental
for legal developments. These words of Eugen Ehrlich beautifully portray the
idea that society is considered to be the main source of law. The Law does not
find its existence in legislation, but in society. Considering today's
scenario, society needs gender unbiased laws rather than gender explicit laws.
Looking at the global perceptive, the developed countries like U.S.A, U.K,
Ireland or Australia have constructed the definition of rape without referring
to any gender.
Bentham[3],
yet another great philosopher, propounded the theory of Utilitarianism which
essentially means, ‘Greatest happiness for the greatest number’. In the welfare
State, there is a commitment to all the citizens of the country to provide
social development regardless of the nature of citizens. The first idea which
strikes in the mind after reading the theory is that it ignores the minority
and only focuses on the needs of the majority. Therefore, this principles of
Utilitarianism by Bentham was rightly criticized by FriedMann on the following
parameters-
It fails to create balance between
the individual interest and the interests of the Society, and thus, Bentham in
his theory undervalued the individual choice and flexibility in the
implementation of the law.
GENDER-SPECIFIC LAWS VIS-A-VIS CRIMINAL
JUSTICE SYSTEM: A CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS
Our preamble starts
with “WE”, where we stand for unity, we stands for every citizen
of our country irrespective of their gender. The importance of the preamble has
been rightly highlighted by the apex court in the case of Kesavananda
Bharati[4],
that Preamble is the integral part of the Constitution and the basic elements
incorporated in it cannot be amended by Article 368 of the Constitution. The
intent of our Constitution maker is to incorporate and to achieve justice of
Social, Economic and Political nature and whereas Equality of Status and of
opportunity.
The Indian
Constitution was drafted in the mid-twentieth century with a view to
incorporate the concept of social welfare and welfare State in general which is
evident from Directive Principle of State Policy (DPSP) provided under part IV
of our Constitution. Provisions under DPSP state the objective which needs to
be achieved with the passage of time for the welfare of the society and to
achieve the very essence of our Preamble. That’s why we declare our
Constitution to be a living document. The essential basis of the Indian
constitution is that all the citizens are equal in the eyes of law. Therefore,
Social justice is considered to be a Fundamental Right[5][6]
and it is an extensive approach to remove social disparities and social
imbalance from the society. Therefore, in the present scenario it has been
observed that the insufficiency of gender neutral laws creates a threat to
social justice.
RIGHT TO EQUALITY- A SINE QUA NON TO A DIGNIFIED LIFE
Fundamental Rights
are considered to be indispensible for the survival of any democracy which are
provided to every person in order to live a gracious and meaningful life and
one such imperative Right is Article 14 i.e.
Equality before Law meaning thereby every individual is equal in the
eyes of law irrespective of their gender, caste or creed. If any person commits
a crime he must be punished according to the procedure established by law
irrespective of their sexual identity. That’s why our Constitutional maker
inserted the phrase ‘any person’ in this very Article.
In E.P. Royappa v.
State of Tamil Nadu[7],
the Modern concept of Equality was pronounced. In this judgment the
Supreme Court has floated from the Customary Idea which depended on reasonable
classification and has set out the new notion of Equality. Justice Bhagwati
articulated the new concept of equality in the following words- “equality is
a unique concept with many aspects and it cannot be cribbed, cabined and bound”
within conventional and doctrinaire limits.
Thus, it is the
obligation of the State to ensure fairness and equality to treatment. It is
evident to note that Rape is consider to be the fourth most common and hated
crime against women in India and the reports and data by NCRB clearly shows the
same. But there is no data which shows the cases of sexual assault on a man. In
our existing criminal justice system a men cannot be a victim of sexual
assault. Section 375, IPC starts with the phrase that ‘A man is said to
commit Rape if he’, however on the other hand the present legal system has no provision for men to seek legal recourse
if they are sexually assaulted.
As per the data collected by National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)[8] it shows-
A huge number of men in US have been survivors of
assault .Starting from 1998; 2.78 million men in
the U.S. had been casualties of endeavored or complete rape. Around 3% of American men—or 1 in 33—have encountered
an endeavored or completed rape in the course of their life. 1 out of every 10 assault casualties is
male. This data shows a man can also be a victim of rape but in India for this
the Criminal Justice system does not have any laws for their protection which
is a clear cut violation of Article 14 guaranteeing Right to Equality.
As pronounced in E.P.
Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu[9]
that Equality is a dynamic concept which needs to cover every individual and
also the duty of the state to provide laws for the men for their protection to
establish Equality[10].
AUTHOR’S ANALYSIS IN LIGHT OF GENDER- SPECIFIC LAWS
·
Contradictory
Approach for the word ‘Victim’
The Definition of victim as provided under
Section 2 (wa) of CrPC is a classic example of the gender dispassionate law. As
per the definition, a victim is only a “person” who suffered loss and injuries,
meaning thereby, a victim can be a male, female or transgender. But the nature
of certain sections of Indian Penal Code depicts the case otherwise. Various
data and surveys show that a man can also be a victim of sexual harassment,
rape, stalking, and a silent spectator of outraged Modesty.
For instance – If any women by her words or
gesture insult the modesty of men, then the women will not be held liable under
section 509 of IPC, but at the same time if any man by his word or gesture
insults the modesty of a women, then he will be liable under section 509 of the
IPC. The legislature of a developed country like U.S.A has drafted the
definition of rape without pertaining to any specific sexual orientation of the
victim. Hence, it is the need of the moment to adopt the gender neutral
approach in India for criminal laws too, respectively.
Some of the gender specific
laws as provided under IPC, 1860 along with an analysis of various other laws have been discussed by the
Researchers as follows-
v
SECTION- 354A
“Ladki chhed rahi hai toh chhid jao Na! (Assuming that a
young lady is teasing you, how about you be happily teased)- Said by a Superintendent of Police when a man complaint
against the women for sexual harassment[11]. As the provision of
Section 354A begins with ‘A MAN’,
meaning thereby, any of the acts which is stated under Section 354A like
unwanted and direct sexual suggestions, any demand or request of sexual favors,
any sexually hued comments against man and showing pornography forcefully to an
adult male, there is no room for man to seek justice against these acts. This
pathetic mentality does not hold any water in their application.
According to the
information distributed by Pew Research statistics in 2014, As per the data
published by Pew research statistics in 2014, 25% of women and 13% of men
between the ages of 18 to 24 have encountered inappropriate behavior while
serving on the web[12].
This shows that men are also the victims of this horrific crime yet they are
denied from giving ‘equal access to justice’ by law.
The question which
needs to be put forth before the legislature and the society at large is who
will protect the men from odious crimes? In India there is no law or statute
for protection of adult males from the act of sexual harassment. Our legislator need to shift their focus on
male as the male suicides at workplace is 4 times more than female suicides due
to the sexual harassment[13].
Judging from the
findings of a recent Economic Times-Synovate survey, the men need to be
incorporated in that bill as soon as possible. Of the 527 individual questioned
across seven cities – Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and
Pune – 19% said they have confronted some kind of sexual harassment at office.
In Bangalore, 51% of the respondents had been sexually harassed, while in Delhi
and Hyderabad, 31% and 28% of those overviewed said they had been physically
harassed[14]
The functioning of Criminal Justice System
and Society owes an apology to such men and their families, for non-denial in
providing justice, remedy and relief for the pain and trauma they have suffered
in their lifetime. The men are forced to live a life full of suffering. The
society has failed to provide redressal for the injustice which makes an ideal
equal society dream too far.
v SECTION-354B
In nutshell the explanation of Section 354B of the IPC 1860 is that
it provides protection to ‘every woman’ from ‘man’ who assaults or forces her
to disrobe or compel her to be naked in front of him.
Imagine a boy 20 year
old who was forced to undress himself by
a 48 year old woman causing that boy ‘severe emotional distress ‘ but his
sorrow and his case cannot get justice as we don’t have law to provide remedy to
that boy. We are a country of 135 billion people and counting every few
minutes. The substantial question is how successfully we have framed our laws
so that it can render justice to billions of people in true spirit. How does
our legal framework fail to notice the silent misery of all the men out there
whose cases go unreported and unnoticed?
v
SECTION 354-C
“Indian law doesn’t have shield to
protect men being photographed secretly “
With more and more
people gaining access to cyberspace it is crucial that their privacy and other
related rights are duly protected. But our Criminal Justice System fails to
respect and safeguard the privacy of men, therefore needs to refurbish. In
2018, new dimensions were established in the context of privacy by the
pronouncement of K.S. Puttuswamy case[15]where
the judges have stressed the worth of the protection of privacy to ensure
liberty and dignity. However, unfortunately section 354-C does not give weightage
to the privacy of a male member of the society because it does not punish those
persons who captures or watches the image of a man engaging in the private act.
On the other hand if the same act happens to a woman then that man will be held
liable both legally and socially, this section therefore, has time and again
ignored the plight of a man who suffers.
Ranjit, a 21 year
old boy narrated his pain in a blog-
Ranjit and his
girlfriend went on a vacation in Ajmer. They share sexual intimacy and after
coming back to home the things doesn’t work well between them and they had a
breakup. After few days, Ranjit received a text - ‘If you don’t do what I
tell you to do, I’ll post those pics everywhere”
Shocking! A man being
blackmailed by a woman .He is traumatized but what is more devastating is that
the largest democratic system fails to provide justice to him. The section 354C
of IPC, 1860 deals with the one of the most outrageous crimes which is emerging
due to the digital revolution which is – Voyeurism. A definitive objective of
the law is to provide remedy to the aggrieved person however the provision of
Voyeurism is inadequate.
v SECTION 354D
Sharing his experience of stalking, a boy
named Arun aged 19 year old says that ‘She knows where I live, she knows
what I wear, she knows all my timing, and she stalks me
everywhere. It felt like I was living in hell. I told my parents
and tried to take legal help but I was denied.
Harsh but reality! The reality is
heartbreaking.
The Indian Penal Code is considered to be a
colonial law made in 1860’s where provision like stalking was not the part of
the IPC. With the passage of events, along with the inputs from JS Verma
Committee, Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013 came into being. As a result,
certain provision got imprinted in Indian penal code, 1860 and one of such
provision was Section 354D which has rightly made stalking a punishable
offence. However capable this provision is but it has neglected the possibility
of men being the victim of the same. When
people are conditioned to believe that a man cannot be a victim of stalking,
they fail to provide justice to all those men who experienced this abusive
behavior and it goes unreported.
If we look at data
collected by the International Telecommunications Union, official telecom
reports, India ranked second place after China and the United States ranked
third in that. Internet users in 2021 of India are 560,000,000 and the Internet
Growth from 2000-2021 is 11,200%[16].
This shows the development of India in the technology sector. It also depicts
that a country with a larger internet user corresponds to a larger crime rate
in respect to cybercrime including stalking .India being on the second rank
indicates that there will be a huge number of cases of online stalking with any
person irrespective of any gender.
As per the
information gathered by National Violence against Women (NVAW), a review of
8000 US Women and 8,000 US man took place on the question as to whether they
have experienced violence including stalking[17].
The Analysis of study represents that 8 % of women and 2 % of men in the United
States have been followed sooner or later in their life and that it is assessed
that 1,006,970 women and 370,990 men are followed yearly. It is also noteworthy
that the Laws of Stalking in the United States is punishable irrespective of
gender.
This reminds us of
the incident which happened few months back, where a girl used to stalk boys by creating a fake account and link on
Snapchat[18]and
she used this social networking platform to make sexually colored remarks and
after some time she put all the blame on a boy who wasn’t even aware of this.
This provision not only lacks gender equality but also infringes the privacy of
the men.
It is unfortunate
that as the second most populated country of the world, we failed to recognize
the suffering and agony of the men who can be a potential victim of this crime
too. It is important to acknowledge stalking as a gender-neutral crime to
obtain righteousness.
v
SECTION 375
Despite going through
such an ordeal, he kept quiet. "I got so used to it, I would enter
his house and lie down on the bed, just wanting it to get over as soon as
possible," he said.
Harrish Iyer, a 7
year old boy narrated his story in an interview[19]-
He was sexually
assaulted by his own uncle at the tender age of 7. This was not the end of the
assault rather it was the beginning. From then, his uncle used to assault him
every time till the age of 18 year. When he told his mother- her reaction was
exactly the same as society’s outlook towards men. She said she didn’t know
that this can also happen to a man.
Here, Not She, but he
is the victim. ‘Man’ is the forgettable gender and it’s actually surprising how
simply we as a society became so ignorant towards the basic rights of a man. In
Indian Penal Code 1860, Section 375 talks about one of the most heinous crime
against humanity – Rape. There are various judgments of the Courts which
reflects the pain and grief of the Victims of this dreadful crime.
In Bodhisattwa
Gautam v. Subhra Chakraborty[20],
the SC portrayed rape as most detested offence and held that “rape is an
offence against essential human rights and a infringement of the victim’s” most
treasured of fundamental rights, namely, the right to life revered in Article
21 of the Constitution and When a man and women is raped, they both faces the
same mental and physical pain. But the only thing which differs is that women
have a cure to her problem while a man suffers silently all his life.
It should be
considered that when the victim has no gender, when the suffering and trauma is
genderless, then why the remedy or relief is gender-specific. Why this
discrimination is still prevalent in our Criminal Laws? In the era of the 21st
Century, where our aim is to find life on Mars, we still believe in the old
conception which rejects female criminality. Such an unnatural definition of
rape stems from the preconceived characterization of a victim’s – perpetrator
framework based on a firm approach on the gender, male or female pattern. Therefore,
from the traditional view of rape, researchers refer only to the special
understanding of rape as a sexual act committed by a man on any part of a
woman's body using her penis or any other object.
In the case of Priya Patel vs. State of Maharashtra[21],
it was said by Court that a women cannot be charged for committing rape because
of their inability to do so. This judgment is a black judgment which not only
discriminates but is a bad precedent. If we analyses the definition of Rape
given in Section 375 of IPC, we can observe that our country’s rape laws only
touches the tip of an Iceberg and it fails to acknowledge the inside issues
which needs to be addressed .
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
The definition of rape in U.S.A reads as follows -
Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body
part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without
the consent of the victim[22].
Meaning thereby the words which are incorporated in the definition of
rape are ‘ANOTHER PERSON ‘and ‘VICTIM’. From this approach it is
evident that a perpetrator does not have any sexual identity and a victim can
be any person, irrespective of the sexual role .They have broken the prejudiced
notion of traditional approach where men are always considered to be a
perpetrator and women being the victim. Therefore, it is high time for India to
adopt the same approach and make gender – specific laws to gender – neutral
laws.
v SECTION-493
Women and Children can afford to be careless, but not men.
These lines from the
Movie Godfather perhaps show the real Picture of the Society. It debars the
recognition of men being the victim of any crimes.
With social
evils decreasing and awareness increasing, our society is progressing towards
gender –equality. But, the journey’s too long and law plays a vital role in
shaping the views against the men. Regrettably, our laws are not liberal. One
such example is of Section 493 of IPC which not only reflects the patriarchal
Mindset, it also shows the narrow thinking that ‘men does not require
such laws to protect themselves’
This section protects the women from a man who depicts the women as
a consequence that she believes she is lawfully married to him although she is
not and therefore, she cohabits with him.
We say law is nothing, but the collective will of the Society. It
means when a collective will of the individuals taken together, that demands
for a change in society. This particular section rejects the notion that a man
can be in such a position that he was portrayed by a lady as in outcome that a
man is persuaded to think that he is legitimately hitched to her and in this
manner she causes him to live together with her .It’s hard to imagine for us,
but it’s not an impossible situation. Because it happens with them, however it
goes unreported and unfortunately we don’t have any data, Statistics and
reports to prove the numbers because we still don’t have any mechanism to
calculate these types of cases. How can a man say that a girl has done fraud
with me? How will he prove it and where will he report the issue?
The Judiciary has widened its ambit to provide remedy in those areas
where there is no written law by the parliament. But ultimately there is a
mandate of separation of powers, and we always require a law for the protection.
Surely the time has come to remove all the privileges and biases from the
law that is based on gender.
v SECTION-498-A
Unfortunately,
No Domestic Violence Act for husband to proceed against wife: Madras High Court[23]
India is a country of traditions, customs and norms followed by
citizens. Here, Marriage is the sacred union of two people, who come together
as equal partners for the journey of life. It was difficult to speak
against marriage, but to protect the women from cruelty; this section came as a
shield for women. To attract this section, there
must be any cruelty done to the ‘wife’ from her husband and that brutality
caused to her can also be done by husband’s relative which can be physical,
mental or financial. The very Ingredients of these section discriminate
between the rights of husband and wife. It reflects the biased opinion and
narrative against the men. It only concentrates to ‘SHE’ and clearly refuses to
identify ‘HE’ as a victim of cruelty. But today, the husbands are also the victim
of ill-treatment and torture done by their wives.
A provision like Cruelty provides enormous powers to the women. The
object behind adding this section was to punish husband and his relatives who
torture or harass the wife to meet any unlawful demand. But in this
contemporary society the abuse and exploitation of this provision is disturbing
the foundation of marriage. Supreme Court in Sushil Kumar Sharma v. Union of
India[24]
pronounced that -? “by abuse of the law, a new type of terror can be
released in the society. The intention behind this section is to be used as
a shield and not as a weapon. And making this provision gender specific is more
disastrous than anything else.
The information of NCRB shows that every year 1, 00,000 cases are
filed under this section and the conviction rate is only 14% in 2015[25].
There is a gap in conviction rate that demonstrates there are an enormous
number of cases which are bogus in nature.
v SECTION-509
Before moving further, it is important to know what modesty
actually stands for. Is it behavior? Or is it respect?
According to Judicial Dictionary[26]–
modesty is defined as a freedom of coarseness, indelicacy or indecency. This definition
is devoid of any gender.
The modesty of women is considered to be
pious and holy. Therefore when it is outraged by a man, he gets punished for
the same. But in our society we don’t recognize a man’s modesty on the same
pedestal. They are also subjected to such incidents in their life where a word,
actions or gesture of women makes them uncomfortable but we don’t have any laws
to preserve their modesty and so thus they don’t speak about their incidents of
suffering.
And this reminds us of a recent incident of
Indian Olympic Gold Medalist Neeraj Chopra –
In an interview with Navika Kumar (Anchor
of Times Now)[27]-
She asked- ‘Do you have a girlfriend’
Neeraj Chopra replied- NO, I don’t
have any girlfriend and I want to focus only on my game.
Then the editor says you can still focus
on games after having a girlfriend.
In yet another interview, taken by RJ
Malishka, where she crossed the limit and acted unprofessionally during the
interview with Neeraj Chopra. While winding up the session, RJ Malishka leaned
on the screen of laptop to take ‘Jaadu ki jhapi’ (Hug with love)
and Neeraj Chopra politely said ‘Door se hi namaste (Hello from
afar)[28]’by
the end they asked her “Zyaada to nahi cheda na aapko humne (we haven’t teased
you much)”?
Again a new level of disrespect and
insensitivity was showed by an Art Historian Rajeev Sethi in an interview[29] where he conveniently
asked- ‘How do you balance your sex life with your training?’, thus
leaving the audience numb and speechless. Will this incident if ever happened
to take place with a non-celebrity come in purview of Section 509?
No, because the victim is a ‘man’ and the
perpetrator a ‘woman’.
This leaves us to consider the idea of Justice that we follow. These incidents
force us to stop, look and introspect on these issues. Imagine if this can
happen with a star Athlete on a national platform and he can’t even access any
legal action against any of them – We cannot even conceptualize the situation
of an ordinary man.
While concluding this issue – The Present Scenario reminds us of a
Latin Maxim- Modica circumstantra facti jus mutal[30]-
Which simply means that small circumstances (attending an act) may change the
law therefore the abovementioned situations are not trivial rather a
recognition of same may render justice to half of the population.
ANALYSIS OF
TERM ‘VICTIM’ IN LIGHT OF POCSO, 2012
“By the time I was 18, no laws applied to my case- so there was no
justice”- said by Harish Iyer, a victim of Rape and Sexual Assault by his own
uncle[31].
The POCSO, 2012 ensure protection to youngster below the age
of 18 years[32].
According to the scrutiny of the definition ‘Sexual Assault’ – If the accused
touches the Victim (or Victim’s body part) with the intent of any sexual nature
then the act of the sexual assault is complete. Meaning thereby if the child is
below the age of 18, he has a remedy for the protection of
sexual offences .But, if the same child happens to be a man who turned the age
of 18 above, then no law is applied in his case and so there will be no
justice.
CONCLUSION
India is a holy land of cultural and ethnical diversities with over
a 140 million of people and is better
known as World’s Largest Democracy with a vibrant living constitution to its
credit . The scared Constitution has provided wide arena of fundamental rights
to citizens such as right to equality, right to freedom, equal opportunities of
life etc. to name a few. Judiciary – the guardian of Constitution has time and
again played a vigilant role to safeguard the rights, liberties of an
individual. On such right as upheld by the apex court in various pronouncements
and also existing under the preamble of the Indian Constitution is Right to a
Dignified Life. However, such rights can only persists when equality will
prevail which is to be borne in mind and spirit not only by Legislature,
Executive and Judicial organ of the State but by society and civilization at
large. From developing women –centric laws to conceptualizing feminism around
us, the agony of man is overshadowed. We still live in the patriarchal mindset
which rejects the notion of man being the victim of any sexual offences. The
plight of men is considered to be less in comparison to female victims. We
failed to provide justice to the majority population in our Country. Men
are the parallel sufferers of the sexual offences. Yet, we discriminate against
them on the basis of gender. Being a developing country it is the high time and
need of the hour to amend the old archaic laws to provide redressal to every
man. And make sexual offences provision to be gender neutral then gender
specific as developed countries like U.S, U.K, Australia.
For the aforesaid purpose, the need of the hour is to bring
gender-neutral laws keeping in view the Constitutional and Societal Development
of Nation. Therefore, mere judicial pronouncement in this regard cannot suffice
the need to bring forth equality in its true sense, but simultaneously the
Legislature has to come up with suitable variations, repeal and change whenever
needed.
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Article Information
Indian Penal Code Vis-à-vis Gender Specific Laws: An Analysis - BY Shivani Agarwal and Anurag Choudhary
Authors: Shivani Agarwal, Anurag Choudhary
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2022/11/22
- Volume 2
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Access Open Access
- License CC 4.0
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