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![handle is hein.journals/indinlr6 and id is 1 raw text is: INDIAN LAW REVIEW Routledge
2022, VOL. 6, NO. 1, 1-16
https://doi.org/10.1080/24730580.2021.1989791 Taylor & Francis Group
RESEARCH ARTICLE
A case against the death penalty for child sexual abuse
Kannan Jhunjhunwala
Associate, Trilegal, National Law University Delhi, Mumbai, India
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY
This Article critiques section 376AB of the Indian Penal Code Received 16 April 2019
1860 and section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Revised 12 July 2021
Offences Act, 2012 which introduce the death penalty for the Accepted 26July 2021
rape or aggravated penetrative sexual assault of children. It KEYWORDS
starts by analysing the incompatibility of the death penalty Proportionality; Criminal Law
with the child-friendly procedures of the 2012 Act. It goes on (Amendment) Act 2018;
to evaluate the constitutionality of the death penalty provisions POCSO; just deserts
under Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. Further, it
assesses the extent to which the extension of the death penalty
for child sex abuse complies with deserts-based sentencing
principle. Finally, it unpacks the implications of these penal
provisions for the reformative goals of the criminal justice
system.
Criminals do not die at the hands of the law. They die at the hands of other men.
Assassination on the scaffold is the worst form of assassination, since there it is invested
with the approval of the society.'
- Justice PN Bhagwati
1. Introduction
The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2018 amended the punishment for rape by
introducing new provisions to the Indian Penal Code 1860 (IPC). The Protection of
Children from Sexual Offence Act 2012 (POCSO) was also amended in July 2019 to
raise the punishment for aggravated penetrative assault from life imprisonment to the
death penalty. These developments were the result of protests2 against the failure of
adequate government responses to the incidents at Kathua and Unnao.3 In Kathua,
Jammu and Kashmir, an eight-year-old girl was gang-raped, abducted and killed, while
at Unnao, Uttar Pradesh a seventeen-year-old was raped by a member of the legislative
CONTACT Kannan Jhunjhunwala Žkannanjhunjhunwala@gmail.com Q 12, Astoria, East Avenue, SC Chatterjee
Marg, Mumbai, Santacruz West, 400054, INDIA
'Bachhan Singh v State of Punjab [1982] 3 SCC 24 (Dissent), [1 ].
2HT correspondent, 'Political and social groups protest against Kathua, Unnao rape cases' Hindustan Times (16 April 2018)
<https://www.hindustantimes.com/jaipur/political-and-social-groups-protest-against-kathua-unnao-rape-cases/story
dQuHzykjJ5MPFtxqLfRxOK.html> accessed 10 April 2021.
3Sarah Binoy, 'Death Penalty for Rape of Children' Live law (23 April 2018) <https://www.livelaw.in/death-penalty-rape-
children-painkillers-without-legislative-prescription/> accessed 5 April 2021.
0 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/indinlr6&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)