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LAHORE, Nov 3: The federal government is learnt to have moved a bill in the National Assembly which seeks to amend the Hudood laws with the purpose of making rape and gangrape an offence non-cognizable by police.
The bill, moved as part of the government’s law reforms policy, seeks amendments to some 15 sections of the Pakistan Penal Code of 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code of 1898 and three sections of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance of 1979, with the objective of ‘expeditious disposal of cases and to provide justice to the people without delay’.
As for the Hudood laws, the bills seeks to amend sections 10, 13 and 14. Section 10 (2) provides for adultery and for sexual act with consent, 10(3) provides for rape and 10(4) provides for gang-rape. As for sections 13 and 14 of the ordinance, they take cognizance of selling and buying of persons for the purpose of prostitution.
The bill is projected making all these offences non-cognizable by police. This means that police will have to take a written permission and warrants of arrest to take offenders into custody. This also means that police can not enter a premises where gangrape or prostitution is reported without valid warrants of arrest issued by a magistrate.
HIGH SECURITY SECTIONS: The Law Reforms Commission, which drafted the new law, requires prisons in Pakistan to earmark a place in jail as ‘high security section’ to keep prisoners awarded capital punishment death and awaiting confirmation by a high court.
The bill proposes to amend section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in a manner as not to treat as condemned prisoner a person sentenced to death by a court of competent jurisdiction. Such a person, according to the bill, shall not be put in the death cell till the high court confirms his or her conviction. Till such time, the convict shall be kept in the high security section for which all jails will prescribe a separate place. For this an amendment to section 374 CrPC has been proposed.
As for women, the bill proposes that they shall be released on bail on a cogent ground like incapacitation and physical and mental jeopardy. However, the draft law does not allow bail to women found involved in offences like narcotics, terrorism, murder, dacoity, robbery and such crimes punishable with death, life imprisonment or imprisonment for 10 years or more.
The bill, according to a senior law department officer, also envisages certain penal offences to harmonize with the Police Order Ordinance 2002, particularly strengthen its investigation discipline, which has been separated from prosecution under the 2002 law.
In this regard the bill seeks to amend section 167 of the Pakistan Penal Code with the objective that investigation has to be honest. The amended law seeks to provide a punishment of five years in prison and a fine of Rs50,000 to a police official found investigating a case dishonestly and in breach of duty. This punishment is six months of imprisonment and a fine up to Rs3,000 in the existing law provision.
The bills also seeks a stringent punishment for wrongful and unlawful confinement by police. It proposes an amendment to section 344 of the PPC to enhance the imprisonment for a period up to seven years against three years awarded in case a person is kept in illegal custody for three or more days.
Similarly, the bill seeks a police official to be prosecuted against if he or she refuses to register the FIR after the receipt of a complaint of commission of a cognizable offence. If the offence is non-cognizable, police have to inform within 24 hours the area magistrate who may direct the police to conduct investigation. It will be in the light of the investigation report that the magistrate will require the police to register a case.
THEFT: The bills also seeks an amendment to section 379 PPC to enhance the punishment of theft from three to five years. In case of cattle theft, the punishment is proposed to be seven years against three years at present.
As for forgery, the bill seeks to amend section 420 PPC in a way as to enhance punishment from seven to 10 years and thus making the offence non-bailable. It also proposes a similar term in prison for preparing of forged documents to unlawfully occupy a property. The punishment for the offence is up to seven years imprisonment at present. The bill now proposes that the punishment for the offence shall not be less than seven years in prison. The bill also proposes to enhance the punishment for dispossessing the rightful owner of a property with the same proportion.
