By IANS
New Delhi : The Law Commission of India Wednesday recommended to the government to enhance the minimum sentence for the convicts in dowry death cases from seven years to 10 years.
In his report submitted to Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj, Law Commission Chairman Justice A.R. Laxmanan made the recommendation while dismissing a proposal for death penalty to them.
The Commission’s recommendations comes after it examined the provisions under Section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which provides for jail term between seven years to life term.
The Commission was entrusted with the task to examine whether the provision under Section 304-B of the IPC should be amended to provide for more stringent punishment of death sentence to curb the menace of dowry deaths, an official release said.
The release said the question of amending Section 304-B of the IPC was examined owing to the growing demand for death sentence for the offence.
The release said despite the penal provisions for dowry death existing since Nov 19, 1986, the incidents of dowry deaths have not shown any significant decline.
The release said: “Even under the existing law, it might be legally permissible to award death sentence where a case of dowry death also falls within the ambit of the offence of murder.
“The guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court for award of death sentence, especially, the dictum of rarest of rare case, however, have to be adhered to in such cases,” it said.