People's Democracy

ORDINANCE: UNCALLED FOR

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on February 2:

THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) disapproves of the ordinance issued by the central government on the issue of sexual violence against women, on both procedural as well as substantive grounds. When parliament is scheduled to meet in three weeks, it is against democratic norms to issue such an ordinance. The ordinance rejects the Verma Committee recommendations on issues like making rape a gender specific crime in the law, on increasing the punishment to public servants guilty of dereliction of duty, of increasing the punishment and also guaranteed compensation for victims of acid attacks and is highly selective about the other recommendations. The ordinance has thus done injustice to the Verma Committee report and appears to be a diversion from the serious issues raised of State culpability including on issues such as inclusion of armed forces in the ambit of criminal law with a suggested amendment in the law.

As far as the death penalty is concerned, the category of rarest of the rare cases is already part of the legal framework and would include cases of rape and murder also, which has been reiterated by Justice Verma.