Death or life term can now be awarded
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the offenders could be awarded capital punishment or life term for killing after rape, scrapping the provision of only death sentence for the offence under Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act 1995.
Delivering a verdict on 12 separate appeals, a four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha also declared unconstitutional a section of the amended law of 2000 that had protected the provisions concerned of the 1995 law.
Now the murder-after-rape offenders will be tried and punished under the amended law of 2000, which provides for death sentence or life imprisonment with a fine of maximum Tk 1 lakh as punishments, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam and lawyers concerned of the appellants told The Daily Star.
Nari o Shishu Nirjatan Daman (Bishesh Bidhan) Ain [Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act] 1995 was amended in 2000 under the title Prevention of Oppression against Women and Children Act 2000.
Section 34(2) of the 2000 act, which had allowed trial and punishment of the offenders under the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Special) Act 1995, has been cancelled following the apex court judgment, they said.
Sections 6(3) and 6(4) of the 1995 law were also declared unconstitutional by the top court.
The provision of section 6(3) said if multiple people in group rape a child or woman, they will be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.
Section 6(4) said if multiple people in group cause death of a child or woman after committing rape, they will be sentenced to death.
Asked about the consequences of the cases and sentences given to the accused under the scrapped provisions of 1995 law, the attorney general said it would be known after the SC releases the full verdict.
Yesterday, the apex court said it commuted the sentence of one of the 10 convicts, who filed appeals with this court against the High Court verdicts that upheld the lower court's judgments sentencing them to death for raping and killing women at different times.
The Appellate Division, however, did not mention the name of the convict whose death sentence was commuted by it.
However, the grounds on which the SC delivered the verdict and its observations could not be known, as it did not release the full judgment.
Following a writ petition, the HC on March 2, 2010, declared section 6(2) of the 1995 law illegal and unconstitutional, saying that death penalty could not be the only punishment for any crime as per the constitutional provision.
The writ petition was filed with the HC jointly by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a rights organisation, and Sukur Ali of Manikganj, a condemned convict, challenging legality of the act.
The HC on March 2, 2010, also stayed the execution of death sentence of Sukur Ali, son of Hashem Mondal of Manikganj. He was given capital punishment under the section in a rape and murder case filed in 1999. Sukur was 12-year-old then.
On July 12, 2001, the Women and Children Repression Prevention Special Tribunal of Manikganj awarded capital punishment to Sukur Ali, now in Dhaka Central Jail.
Later, Sukur filed an appeal with the HC against the trial court verdict. But the HC on February 25, 2004, upheld the judgment of the trial court and the Appellate Division also upheld the HC verdict on February 23, 2005.
In 2010, BLAST and Sukur Ali filed two separate appeals with the SC seeking cancellation of his detention and death sentence.
Later on, 10 similar convicts filed separate appeals with the SC challenging the HC verdicts that upheld their death sentences.
Nazneen Nahar, a lawyer for BLAST, told The Daily Star that her client would be released from jail as their appeal had been allowed by the apex court.
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