HC irked over rise in sexual offence cases, raps Centre, state

, May 5: The Delhi

has expressed dismay over the rise in sexual offence cases despite a new law providing for harsher punishment and rapped the Centre and the state government for not taking steps to create mass awareness among victims and others.

"Despite the recent mass protest after the Nirbhaya murder case, which led to the setting up of Justice J S Verma Committee and consequent amendments introduced by Parliament through the Criminal Amendment Bill 2013 to make (laws against) sex-related offences more stringent, yet no deterrence can be seen to bring down the ratio of such sexual crimes being perpetuated on women and children.

"There is thus an urgent and imperative need to sensitise the people through various mass awareness campaigns and social programmes to make them aware about the stringent laws and severity of the punishments provided for committing such ghastly crimes. This would ensure the confidence of women in the system and they would be in a better position to voice their concern," a bench of justices Kailash Gambhir and Sunita Gupta said.

PTI