TOPIC- SPREADING OF LEGAL AWARENESS

SUB-TOPIC – RAPE

Law of Crimes PSDA 2019

SUBMITTED BY-
NAME- MUSKAAN GOPAL
CLASS- II C
ENROLLMENT NO.- 12010303817

SUBMITTED TO-
Ms. Purva Kaushik
INTRODUCTION
Legal awareness lies at the base of any effort toward legal empowerment. Critical knowledge of
legal provisions and processes, coupled with the skills to use this knowledge to realize rights and
entitlements will empower people to demand justice, accountability and effective remedies at all
levels. Legal awareness sometimes called Public legal education and civics education is the
empowerment of individuals regarding issues involving the law. Legal awareness helps to
promote consciousness of legal culture, participation in the formation of laws and the rule of
law1
Legal awareness drive
 It comprises a range of activities intended to build public awareness and skills related to
law and the justice system. This term also refers to the fields of practice and study
concerned with those activities, and to a social and professional movement that advocates
greater societal commitment to educating people about the law.
 This is because laws exist as part of a larger organizational ecosystem in which the
interests of the organization, as well as those of the actors, become inextricably linked to
the ways in which they are enacted.
 It is different from the education of students in law school seeking a degree in law (which
is often simply called “legal education”) and the continuing professional education of
lawyers and judges (which is sometimes called “continuing legal education”), public
legal education is principally aimed at people who are not lawyers, judges, or degree-
seeking law students.
For the progress of the country where everybody lives in harmony with others, ensuring a
just society there is an urgent need for spreading legal awareness amongst people. The idea
behind spread of legal information is that people are empowered before the need to seek
Legal Aid arises and if the need for legal aid does arise then at least the people armed with
newly acquired legal information can use the information in the best possible way. In order to
promote the legal awareness following step should be taken-:
 Increase in the literacy rate in the country. In our own country also because of high
literacy rates people from Kerala are more conscious about their legal rights than other
states.
 Societies like ‘SEWA’, ‘MARG’, ‘ICARE’, ‘CRY’, etc have been doing a pioneering
work in creating legal awareness among people.
 Such work needs to be encouraged. If other governmental an non-governmental
organizations come up with such ideas then making people aware of their rights and
duties and delivering justice would not be a difficult task.
 Legal classes can be held in schools and colleges, with the aim of training the student
also in turn can spread the same to their parents and friends. Particularly, women and
girls can be enlightened on various legal protections and procedures to approach Police
Station and courts for protection of their rights and obtain remedy for their problems.

1
Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer ”Globalization and Challenges to Building Peace”
  Along with the legal acts, people need to be sensitized about various welfare schemes of
the Government, functioning of the Legal Service Authority, the enacted provisions
regarding free legal aid and services.
Economically, India is having a sustained growth. The country is on the threshold of a
developed country, an elevation from the status of a developing economy. In this scenario,
the need for legal awareness amongst the citizen is very much necessary. With citizens
conversant with their rights and duties, the presence of justice and fair play in the society,
transparency, accountability would enable the country to make bigger strides in this
economic development. Being a democracy is an advantage in this regard.

Legal Awareness related to Rape

The word rape originates from the Latin word rapere, which meant “to snatch, to grab, to carry
off”. In Roman law, raptus (or raptio) primarily meant kidnapping or abduction; sexual violation
was a secondary issue. Essentially in the ancient world, the offence of rape was divided into two
aspects, the theft of “property” from the husband/father, and the sexual abuse. Wherein the
female was considered as the “property”.

Rape and IPC:

The offence of rape has long been considered a crime under the ambit of Indian Law, by virtue
of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC”). Section 375 defines Rape as:

A man is said to commit “rape” who, except in the case hereinafter accepted, has sexual
intercourse with a woman under circumstances falling under any of the six following
descriptions:

(First) — Against her will.

(Secondly) — Without her consent.
(Thirdly) — With her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person
in whom she is interested in fear of death or of hurt.
(Fourthly) — With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband and that her
consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to
be lawfully married.
(Fifthly) — With her consent, when, at the time of giving such consent, because of unsoundness
of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupe-
fying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that
to which she gives consent.
(Sixthly) — With or without her consent, when she is under sixteen years of age.
Explanation — Penetration is sufficient to constitute the sexual intercourse necessary to the
offence of rape.
(Exception) — Sexual intercourse by a man with his wife, the wife not being under fifteen years
of age [the word “fifteen” was effectively replaced by the word “eighteen”, follow the Supreme
Court’s judgement in 2017], is not rape
As per the provisions, before 2017, sexual intercourse, even without the consent of a man with
his wife, even if the wife was a minor, but above the age of 15, would not constitute as rape. In
2017, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court of India, comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and
Deepak Gupta in the matter of Independent Thought (Petitioners) and The Child Rights Trust
(Intervener) vs. Union of India and Others, read down Section 375 of IPC and held that sexual
intercourse with the minor girl, even if the minor is married and the accused is the husband,
would constitute the offence of rape. The Bench found no reason why a married minor female of
the age 16 – 18 should not have protection against unwanted sexual intercourse against their
husbands, merely by their marriage. The Bench did not comment on forcible sexual relations
between an adult husband and an adult wife.

What is Statutory Rape?

Where normal Rape, involves the element of lack of consent, or consent obtained through fraud
or force, Statutory Rape is different in a sense, where the consent is not considered to be valid.
This offence is created to save the exploitation of the minor by the adults. In this kind of rape,
the adult will get punished if he had any kind of physical interaction with a woman/girl, in the
age of 18 or below, no matter if she has voluntarily participated in the act or not. The consent of
the minor is immaterial and will not be considered any defence to the accused.
The age of consent in India is 18 years old. The age of consent is the minimum age at which an
individual is considered legally old enough to consent to participate in sexual activity. The
individual within 17 years of age or younger, will not be considered to be legally old enough to
give their consent to participate in any kind of sexual activity. So if a male and a female, both of
the age 17 enter into voluntary intercourse, the male may be arrested and charged with rape.
Though generally in such cases, where there is no actual exploitation of the minor, taking into
consideration the statement of the minor female, the accused are often let off

Misuse of Statutory Rape by Families:

Often when young men and women fall in love, elope and run away from their families, the
parents of the girl file a rape case against the boy to deter the couple from getting married. As
statutory rape is considered a very serious offence, generally the Police act immediately. But in
such cases, if the female stands her ground and explains to the court that she had left on her own
accord, the Courts generally let off the male.

Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013:

In 2012, Delhi witnessed a gang rape, which widely referred to as the Nirbhaya rape case, shook
the conscience of the entire Country and lead to the introduction of tougher laws in the form of
the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013. The minimum sentence was changed from seven
years to ten years. In cases that led to the death of the victim or the victim being left in a
vegetative state, the minimum sentence was increased to twenty years.
Since one of the accused in the case was a juvenile at that time, he was tried as a minor and had
escaped the full brunt of the law despite being 17 years old. To avoid such cases in future, the
age for being tried as an adult for violent crimes like rape and murder was changed from 18 to
16. The Legislation upheld that if children within the age of 16 to 18 undertake gruesome and
violent murders and rapes, they deserved to be tried and punished as adults.

Sexual Offenses against Minors:

Till 2012, only “Statutory Rape” provided protection to minor victims against rape and sexual
exploitation. As from 2001 to 2011, crimes of sexual nature against minors kept on drastically
increasing, the Government with the help of NGO’s realized that the current IPC was inadequate
to deal with the problem. Children were more often than not sexually assaulted by their family or
people they knew and left traumatized. Such children, would not be able to follow the strict
procedure under the Criminal Procedure Code. Hence the Protection of Children from Sexual
Offences Act (POCSO Act), 2012 was created to protect minors from sexual exploitation, and
easy the process of prosecution via the creation of special courts, with trained personals to take
care of the minors mental and emotional state during the trail.
In 2018, after multiple instances of abuse of children, including in Kathua and Unnao rape
cases, widespread outrage saw the introduction of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance,
2018. The Ordinance, while increasing the maximum punishment to the death penalty, came with
its problems, including discrimination between male and female minor victims as it was rushed
without proper application of mind. The Ordinance is currently under challenge before the Delhi
High Court, in a petition filed by the NGO Aapna Aap Collective.

Reporting of Offence:
Generally, under the law, offences once committed, must be reported immediately, or as soon as
the offence has come to the knowledge of the person reporting. The standard limitation policy is
set under Section 468 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. As per this section, if the maximum
punishment is merely a fine, then the offence has to be reported within six months. If the offence
is punishable with imprisonment of not more than one year, the offence has to be reported within
one year of it taking place. If an offence is punishable for a term more than one year but less than
three years or less, the crime can be reported up to three years later. For an offence whose
punishment is greater than three years imprisonment, for example, rape, murder etc., the crimes
can be reported even after three years of the action taking place. Some important factors to be
taken into account for calculating the time is that in case the accused is on the run, the time till
the accused is caught is not considered for calculation of limitation period. Also, in case of
sexual assault, if a victim is a minor, the victim can file the case once they are 18. While criminal
cases can be legally filed for major offences even after years of the crimes, both the Court and
the defence can question the delay, which has to be explained.
Experience of spreading of awareness

For the purpose of this assignment, my partner and I decided to visit a local park in Kailash
Colony to spread awareness about the topics we had chosen. We found a group of kids playing
and asked them to spare a few minutes of their time for our assignment.

Considering their age, I did not delve too deep into the topic but gave them a general idea and
outline regarding the same. I discussed a few landmark cases too and they were shocked to learn
the facts of these cases.

It is rightly said that children are forced to grow up quickly in today’s violent world. The kind of
maturity they portrayed while asking questions and while listening to me can only be found in
those who’ve witnessed or heard of the harsh realities of life.

Every time we discuss the aspects of rape, the information is almost always given to women
itself. This time we decided to change it as the victims to this offence are both males and female.
We tried making our session as interactive as possible to help them understand everything.

After we were done with our respective presentations, they asked questions regarding whatever
doubts they had.

The whole purpose of the assignment was to educate people about the various offences under
IPC and since the kids are considered the future of the nation, the decision to talk to them felt
like a right one.

They heard us with a very serious frame of mind and all I can hope for is that our little step to
educate them goes a long way and they in turn help educate their family and friends further.