Breaking News! POCSO Act: Cabinet approves ordinance; death penalty for rape of children below 12

The Union Cabinet on Thursday has approved an ordinance on the rape of children which allows the death penalty to those who are found guilty of raping children up to 12 years of age. The massive outrages over the increase in the numbers of sexual violence against minor across the country led to amending the new law in the matter.

Before this law, the maximum punishment for the person or group convicted in case of raping a child below or up to 12 years was life imprisonment under the Child Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act.

The centre in a cabinet meeting signed off an ordinance to amend capital punishment for the child rapists. This move of government came in order to fight against sexual crimes against young girls. The Cabinet also cleared a second ordinance that will let the government confiscate the property of economic offenders who flee the country, says report.

The union minister for women and child development, Maneka Gandhi, had drifted the idea of changing the law in the children sexual violence last week amid national grief and anger over the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua. At Saturday's meeting, the proposal was formally moved by the Home Ministry.

PM Modi's government was the last one to spike the suggestion in January. "The death penalty is not the answer to everything," the centre's law officer told the Supreme Court this January.

Cabinet clears amendment in the law, approves a death penalty for rape of children below 12,