A recent letter from activists and legal experts to the chief minister merits scrutiny. This is because the missive raises several legal red flags about the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2024 that has been passed by Mamata Banerjee’s government. While prescribing harsher punishments for rape, the bill, in a particular case — that of rape and injury leading to the death of the victim or the victim being reduced to a vegetative state — has recommended death as the sole penalty. This, those knowledgeable in law agree, is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had pointed out in one of its earlier judgments that the death penalty can in no way be made mandatory; even the Justice Verma Committee, which was constituted to examine laws and criminal justice practices concerning sexual violence, was opposed to the death penalty as a deterrent. Data around the globe bear out this sound legal position.

There are other concerns that plague the bill. The push towards setting up a special task force as well as dedicated courts of inquiry will not bear fruit unless these agencies and institutions are given the funds, infrastructure and personnel that would make them effective. Will such resources be made available? The bill does not mention offences against sexual minorities: the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, too, maintains a dispiriting silence on this subject. The drafting of the bill, the critics have stated, could have been far more representative: the traditional practice of holding consultations with a diverse set of stakeholders, including members of the civil society, was not adhered to. Taken together, these limitations confirm that the drafting of the bill was a knee-jerk response on the part of the powers that be when they were confronted with serious public pressure to address the crisis. Justice delayed is undesirable; similarly, extreme haste in the dispensing of justice can often lead to the adoption of problematic — populist — positions that end up treating the symptoms rather than the disease. Sexual violence against women is the result of embedded structural pathologies. Confronting these impediments requires sustained, deeper engagements — well-thought-out preventive measures, reforms in policing, improvements in conviction rates, sensitising intimate spaces and people are among the necessary measures. Meaningful transformations will remain elusive as long as legislations prioritise the punitive over the reformatory.