Shah: Having intercourse under false promise of marriage, employment to be treated as crime | India News

NEW DELHI: Marrying a woman by concealing identity or having intercourse under false promise of marriage, promotion or employment will be treated as crime for the first time under the proposed law – Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill that will replace the Indian Penal Code. This will attract imprisonment up to 10 years.

Home minister Amit Shah highlighted this while introducing the bill and added that special focus has been given to provisions relating to crimes against women. “Crime against women and many social problems faced by them have been addressed in this bill. For the first time, intercourse with women under the false promise of marriage, employment, promotion and false identity will amount to a crime,” he said.
While courts have dealt with cases of women claiming rape on the basis of breach of promise of marriage, there is no specific provision for this in the IPC.

The bill states, “Whoever, by deceitful means or making by promise to marry to a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same, and has sexual intercourse with her, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years and shall also be liable to fine. In the proposed legislation ‘deceitful means’ has been defined to include ‘the false promise of employment or promotion, inducement or marrying after suppressing identity’.”
In cases of gang rape, the bill provides for 20 years of imprisonment or life imprisonment. In the case of girls below 18 years of age, provision has been made for life imprisonment or death penalty.
Whoever commits rape on a girl under 12 years of age shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, or with death.
Anyone who commits rape shall be punished with imprisonment of not less than 10 years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life.
The sections related to rape also focuses on the issue of consent. It states that consent means “an unequivocal voluntary agreement when the woman by words, gestures or any form of verbal or non-verbal communication, communicates willingness to participate in the specific sexual act. Provided that a woman who does not physically resist the act of penetration shall not by the reason only of that fact, be regarded as consenting to the sexual activity.”
A medical procedure or intervention shall not constitute rape. Also, sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 18 years of age, is not rape.
According to the bills, if a woman dies after the rape or it causes the woman to be in a persistent vegetative state, the convict shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life or with death.
The proposed bill has also made the crime of voyeurism gender neutral with a punishment of three to seven years.