NEW DELHI: Twenty-year-old
Delhi girl Laxmi, once pretty but who now fears to venture out with her scarred
face, got a bigger shock than her jilted lover throwing acid on her as the
Centre did a U-turn in the Supreme Court and said no change in law was needed to
provide for life sentence for the offence.
She had moved the SC to make all jilted lovers who attack girls like her with
acid pay dearly for their crime. For the last four years, the Centre had been
assuring both her and the court that moves were afoot to amend the Indian Penal
Code to make acid attack a heinous office punishable with life term.
However, going back on its word, the home ministry in its latest affidavit
before the court said, "The existing legislations are sufficient to deal with
the offence of acid attack and there is no requirement of any special
legislation for dealing with the offence."
At present, the offenders get charged under Section 326 of IPC, which lists many
offences and provides sentences upto life imprisonment. Experience shows that
the guilty in acid attack cases get away with a prison term between 7 to 10
years as the offence seldom gets categorised as a heinous crime during trial,
Laxmi's counsel Aparna Bhat said.
"We had requested the court to make acid attack a specific crime and place it in
heinous offence category to sensitise the trial judge and provide stringent
punishment for the offenders," she said. Her plea had the support of the Law
Commission of India and National Commission for Women, both of which called for
enaction of a separate section 326A to deal with acid attack offences.
Additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran had last year assured the court on
the same lines and had said, "There is a change in thinking in the government
and it is in favour of making acid attack a serious offence by amending the
provisions of IPC."
Bhat had sought to equate acid attacks with rape. "The victim appears almost as
a living `mummy' with face fossilised by scars. It should be the endeavour of
the criminal justice system, police, doctors and judiciary as a whole to ensure
that she does not face apathy and that perpetrators of the crime are dealt with
sternly," she had pleaded.
Apart from this, Bhat had sought a ban on across-the-counter sale of acid and
informed the SC that even Bangladesh had banned free sale of the corrosive
substance and enacted a law treating acid attack as heinous offence.
The home ministry said a conference of home secretaries was convened by the
Centre in 2008 and the view that emerged from the discussion was that though the
offence of throwing acid was serious and required stringent punishment, the
existing Section 326 of IPC was adequate to deal with it.
It said, "It will be difficult to equate the victim of acid attack with a rape
victim." It mentioned that a legislation had been eneacted for formulating and
executing schemes by the state governments for rehabilitation of victims and
payment of compensation to them.
It also rejected the request of petitioner for at least regulating the sale of
acid even though the court appeared to have agreed with the suggestion last
year. The SC had said, "A complete ban on retail sale of acid is difficult as it
us used for so many purposes. But we think restricted sale can serve the
purpose."
However, the ministry said, "The conference of home secretaries of states and
Union Territory administrations expressed the view that it would not be
practicable to put restriction on free sale of acid or to make its accessibility
difficult since acid in different forms is used for many household purposes."
dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com