Staff Reporter :
The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday upheld a High Court (HC) judgment on Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act, 1995, having the provision for life sentence along with death sentence for killing after rape.
A four-member Appellate Division bench of the SC, headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, declared the Sections 6 (2), 6 (3) and 6 (4) of Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act, 1995
unconstitutional and illegal, which stipulated death sentence as the only punishment for rape and killing.
In the verdict, the SC observed that the death penalty could not be the only punishment for any crime under the Constitution.
Though the 1995 Act was amended in 2000, the Section 34 (2) of the amended law suggested the cases initiated before the amendment will be disposed of under the previous law. The Appellate Division declared this Section of 2000 Act also unconstitutional.
Later, the HC scrapped the provision of death sentence as the only punishment for the offence in an order on March 2, 2010 in response to a writ petition, filed jointly by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a rights organization, and a convict Sukhur Ali.
The HC also stayed the execution of Sukkur Ali, convicted in a rape and killing case in Manikganj in 1999, on the date it annulled the concerned Sections of the law.
The government appealed against this HC verdict with the SC in the same year.
As per Section 6 (2) of the 1995 Act, if someone kills a woman or a child after rape, the convict must be sentenced to death. Under Section 6 (3) and 6 (4), life imprisonment is the only punishment for gang rape and death sentence for killing a woman or a child after gang rape.
The Sections 6 (2), 6 (3) and 6 (4) of the 1995 Act have become null and void as the court has declared these illegal, Attorney General Advocate Mahbubey Alam said.
However, he said, “The old cases may go on under 2000 Act, because it offers both punishments – death sentence and life imprisonment – for the convicts of rape and murder.
Advocate MI Farooqui, the counsel of BLAST, said it was not possible to explain everything without having the full text of the verdict.
Earlier, Sukkur Ali, 14, of Shibrampur village under Shibalaya Upazila of Manikganj district killed a seven-year-old girl Sumi of the same village on June 11, 1996.
The judicial court awarded death penalty to Sukkur Ali on July 12, 2001. The HC and the Appellate Division also upheld the death sentence respectively on February 25, 2004 and February 23, 2005. Appellate Division also dismissed Sukkur Ali’s review petition on May 4, 2005.
