Despite the progress made by women in education and in various fields and changes brought in ideas of women’s rights, respect for women is on the decline and crimes against women are on the increase, the Supreme Court observed and called for concerted efforts to prevent such crimes.
In her separate judgment upholding death sentence on the four accused, Justice R Banumathi said offences against women are not a women’s issue alone but, a human rights issue. Increased rate of crime against women is an area of concern for the law-makers and it points out an emergent need to study in depth the root of the problem and remedy the same through a strict law and order regime. There are a number of legislations and numerous penal provisions to punish the offenders of violence against women. However, it becomes important to ensure that gender justice does not remain only on paper.
She said the incident of gang-rape on the night of Dec 16 in the capital sparked nation-wide protest. A committee headed by Justice JS Verma was constituted to suggest amendments to deal with sexual offences more sternly and effectively in future. The suggestions of the committee led to the enactment of Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, which inter alia, 322 brought in substantive as well as procedural reforms in the core areas of rape law.
However, Justice Banumathi said a total of 3,27,394 cases of crime against women were reported in 2015, which shows an increase of over 43% in crime against women since 2011, when 2,28,650 cases were reported. A percentage change of 110.5% in the cases of crime against women has been witnessed over the past decade (2005 to 2015), meaning thereby that crime against women has more than doubled in a decade. An overall crime 318 rate under the head, ‘crime against women’ was reported as 53.9% in 2015, with Delhi UT at the top spot.
Justice Banumathi said, “We live in a civilised society, where law and order is supreme and the citizens enjoy inviolable fundamental human rights. But when the incident of gang-rape like the present one surfaces, it causes ripples in the conscience of society and serious doubts are raised as to whether we really live in a civilised society driven by rule of law. Certainly, whenever such grave violations of human dignity come to fore, an unknown sense of insecurity and helplessness grabs the society, women in particular, and the only succour people look for, is the state to take command of the situation and remedy it effectively.”
