Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has rejected a public interest litigation that sought mandatory castration as punishment for individuals convicted of gang rape, rape-murder cases, and sexual assault of minors.
The petition aimed to make such severe punishment a deterrent against heinous sexual crimes in Assam.
Advocate Reetam Singh filed a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) urging the court to mandate that the Assam government enact laws for the compulsory castration of certain categories of sexual offenders.
The court dismissed the petition after examining the reliefs sought and the materials on record.
“Having heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as after going through the materials available on record and after taking into consideration the reliefs sought for in this PIL petition, such as, to direct the State Government to bring in laws to introduce the punishment of compulsory castration of individuals involved in the crime of gang rape (all ages), rape and murder (all ages) along with rape of minors, we are of the view that the reliefs prayed for in the PIL petition cannot be granted on the pleaded facts and the materials placed on record,” the court observed.
The petitioner had made several demands, including the free distribution of pepper sprays to school girls free of cost and at subsidized rate to women and to form a Committee to investigate the reasons for the increasing number of rape crimes in Assam and the low rate of charge sheeting.
Besides, it asked the High Court to direct the Assam government to bring in laws similar to the Andhra Pradesh Disha Act – Criminal Law (Andhra Pradesh Amendment) Act 2019 in the state to effectively control the sexual offences against women and expeditiously try such cases with death penalty.
However, the Assam Police countered these demands by highlighting existing initiatives. The Director General of Police filed a detailed affidavit showcasing the state’s zero-tolerance policy toward crimes against women and children.
These measures include 320 Women Help Desks across police stations, the Sishu Mitra Resource Centre in collaboration with UNICEF, and specialised monitoring of POCSO Act cases.
The police response emphasised their active social media campaigns for awareness generation and priority handling of heinous crimes.
“Social media campaigns have been also launched for creating awareness related to crime against women and children with special emphasis on cyber-crime incidents,” the affidavit stated.
“Heinous crimes against women and children such as rape, murder, child sexual abuse trafficking etc. are accorded top priority and therefore, proper monitoring of such cases are carried out for ensuring time bound investigations,” it stated.
The CID Headquarters has also published investigation handbooks and compiled standard operating procedures specifically for crimes against women and children, which have been distributed to all police stations statewide.
The affidavit further stated, “Assam Police is monitoring POCSO Act cases as well as cases related to Crime against Women and Children to ensure proper supervision for thorough investigation of such cases in compliance with law so that the cases are brought to logical conclusion in the stipulated time frame.”
The court rejected the petitioner’s argument that Assam should adopt schemes from other states like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The bench emphasised that crime-fighting strategies must be tailored to local conditions.
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“Every State has its own challenges in tackling the crimes against society including crimes against women and children. A scheme introduced or implemented by a particular State is always not necessarily effective in another State. Any scheme for tackling crimes in a particular State is formulated and implemented after taking into consideration the ground realities of that State. In such circumstances, no such directions can be issued that the State of Assam may implement or adopt a Scheme of other States for tackling the crimes against women and children,” the court ruled.
The court dismissed the PIL for lacking merit, concluding that Assam already possessed sufficient state mechanisms and policies to combat crimes against women and children.
