Anyone who calls a woman “dayan”, “dakan”, “dakin”, “chilavan”, “opri”, “chudail” or “bhootni” and uses criminal force against her can face seven years in jail if the ordinance mooted by the Congress-led Rajasthan government is cleared by the Centre.
The Rajasthan government, which hosted the Congress party’s chintan shivir, has submitted the Rajasthan Women (Prevention of Atrocities) Ordinance, 2013, to the Union ministry of home affairs seeking presidential assent to promulgate it.
Rajasthan has also included khap panchayats, making a woman do begar (a form of bonded labour), parading a woman naked, taking a virginity test or forcing her to eat inedible substances punishable under the proposed law. These provisions are missing in the central ordinance. The MHA is seeking the law ministry’s opinion on it.
Rajasthan is the only state which has approached the MHA for bringing its own ordinance on sexual offences and atrocities against women. The state government’s move to approach the Centre with its draft ordinance coincided with the Congress party expressing concern about women’s safety during its chintan shivir last month.
Rajasthan government officials have told the MHA that there is an urgent need for its own ordinance as the state is notorious for such crimes and the proposed law seeks to abolish the social stigmas imposed on women and criminalise such offences. A khap panchayat in Rajasthan had stirred a controversy in January after 12 members of a village council reportedly tried to set fire to a woman accused of witchcraft.
The Rajasthan ordinance seeks to crack down on khap panchayats, saying “any person or assembly of persons which acts against a woman or anyone in a domestic relationship with the woman to compel her to do what she is not legally bound to or omit what she or he is legally entitled to” will face a jail term extending up to three years. The proposed law also seeks to protect a woman’s “land rights”, proposing three years’ jail for dispossessing a woman wrongfully of her land.
The state, separately, wants to make “obnoxious telephone calls”, causing “annoyance” and “insult” to a woman and accusing her of not being a virgin punishable with a maximum three-year jail term.
Further, threatening a woman with publishing her picture, recording her voice and inducing her to show sexual favour can invite a seven-year jail term under the state’s proposed law.
The MHA is of the opinion that the provisions proposed in the state ordinance can clash with the Central ordinance and that it may not be legally viable to promulgate it. A final decision is expected soon.