Amendment to laws proposed against rape: fixation of six-month period for adjudication lauded

The legal fraternity has lauded the fixation of six-month period for adjudication in the rape case while submitting their proposal to the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights in response to a private member's proposed Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2013 presented by Senator Syed Sughra Imam.
The Senate Committee on Law and Justice has called for public hearing on November 11, 2014, while inviting different sections of society, including the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights, the Pakistan Bar Council and the legal fraternity to give their suggestions to deter the heinous crime of rape.
Syeda Sughra Imam had moved the Bill seeking to make amendments in the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, (PPC of 1860), Criminal Procedure Code, 1898, (CrPC of 1898) and the Qanun-e-Shadat Order, 1984 (QSO of 1984) with an aim to address loopholes in the existing laws which deals with offence of rape in order to improve the conviction rate and bring culprits within the ambit of the law.
Currently offence of rape is being dealt under Section 375 and 376 PPC of 1860, inserted through special law Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, 2006. While talking to Business Recorder, Advocate of High Court Sharafat Ali Chaudhry said that in the proposed Bill introduction of new category of custodial rape seems arbitrary as life imprisonment was already deterrent in nature regardless the place where the offence was committed. However, he added that the minimum punishment under Section 376 of the PPC may be raised from 10 year to life imprisonment even if the offence is committed by a single person.