Report 202 – Proposal to amend Section 304-B IPC Dowry ... - Jeywin

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That may lay down the maximum and the minimum punishment
for an offence. The second stage relates to punishing an individual
criminal within permissible limits so prescribed in the law
depending upon the facts and circumstances of a given case. We
are concerned here with the first stage, that is to say, whether
Section 304B of Indian Penal Code, 1860 should be amended to
provide for death sentence for the offence of dowry death. The
section presently provides for life imprisonment and a minimum
sentence of seven years imprisonment. The subject of death
sentence or capital punishment has generated endless debates the
world over that failed to reach unanimous universal conclusions.
India has retained death sentence on its statute book. However, in
practice it is sparingly used in the rarest of rare cases. There is a
distinct tendency to restrict its use to gravest offences committed
in a diabolic way that shocks the conscience of the public at large.
3.3 Suggestions by the National Commission for Women
The issue relating to the deep-rooted evil of dowry was also
taken up in the convention organized by the National
Commission for Women on 22 nd November, 2005 at Symposia
Hall of NSC, Pusa, New Delhi. The Commission proposed an
amendment to enhance the punishment for dowry deaths under
Section 304-B, IPC for the following reasons.
(a)
To keep this offence at par with murder and by no
stretch of imagination it is less grave an offence than
the murder;