Ministry of Women and Child Development A Victim of Child Sexual Abuse can file a complaint at any time irrespective of his/her present age: WCD Ministry 16 OCT 2018 The Ministry of Women and Child Development had recently consulted Ministry of Law in view of the overriding provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act over other criminal laws and provisions of mandatory reporting of such offences. The Ministry of Law after examining the provisions of POCSO Act vis-a-vis provisions of CrPC has advised that there appears no period of limitation mentioned in Section 19 in regard to reporting of the offences under the POCSO Act, 2012. The POCSO Act does not provide for any period of limitation for reporting the child sexual offences. On receipt of the opinion of Ministry of Law, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, Minister of WCD stated that “Now any victim, at any age, can complain the sexual abuse faced by him/her as a child”. She urged the victims to report th...

Union cabinet approves ordinance for death penalty for rape of children The Union Cabinet on Saturday approved an ordinance to allow courts to award death penalty to those convicted of raping children up to 12 years of age. Official sources said here that the criminal law amendment ordinance seeks to amend the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Evidence Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to introduce a new provision to sentence convicts of such crimes punishment of death The move comes against the backdrop of the alleged rape and murder of girls in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua and Gujarat’s Surat district recently The rape of a minor in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district had also outraged the nation The ordinance would be now sent to the President for his approval. PTI