Sexual offences I: rape and its punishment (ss. 63-71 BNS)
LUG-106 Substantial Law of Crimes-I (The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 - I), Unit IV: Sexual offences (ss. 63-73). · LLB · 60 min
Chapter V of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 gathers the offences against women and children. This lecture reads s. 63 (s. 375 IPC) clause by clause: the four penetrative acts, the seven circumstances, the meaning of consent, the two exceptions, and the ladder of punishments in ss. 64-71 including the new s. 69 and gang rape of a girl under eighteen. It then turns to how rape is proved: the sole testimony of the prosecutrix, the ban on the two-finger test, the procedural protections born of the Mathura, Nirbhaya and Hathras cases, and the victim's right to compensation.
Objectives
- Explain the definition of rape in s. 63 BNS: the four acts, the seven circumstances and the two exceptions.
- Explain what "consent" means under Explanation 2 and why non-resistance is not consent.
- Distinguish the punishments in ss. 64, 65, 66, 70 and 71 and identify the aggravated forms.
- Apply s. 69 (deceitful means or false promise of marriage) and distinguish it from rape.
- Analyse the challenges in proving rape and the rules laid down in Gurmit Singh, Lillu and Bodhisattwa Gautam.
Slides
- Chapter V of the BNS: offences against woman and child
- What s. 63 says: the four acts (s. 375 IPC)
- The seven circumstances
- Consent: Explanation 2 and what it changed
- The two exceptions: medical procedure and the marital exception
- Punishment: ss. 64, 65, 66 and 71 (ss. 376, 376AB, 376A, 376E IPC)
- Sections 67-70: separated husband, person in authority, deceitful promise, gang rape
- Proving rape I: the prosecutrix's word
- Proving rape II: medical evidence, procedure and the victim's rights
- Mathura and Nirbhaya: how the cases rewrote the law
- Hathras: Satyam Dubey v. Union of India (2020)
- How the examiner asks it
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