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Centre Returns Bengal Bill, Sparks Legal Showdown
The Sunday Guardian
|July 27, 2025
Centre's rejection of Bengal's Aparajita Bill sparks political and legal clash.
The stage is set for another round of acrimony between the Mamata Banerjee Government and the Centre. This time, it is over the Aparajita Women and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2024, which was passed by the State Assembly unanimously following mass protests against the horrific rape-murder of a 31-year-old junior doctor at the State-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in August last year.
On Friday, top Raj Bhavan sources said that the Bill had been returned by President Droupadi Murmu and therefore Governor C.V. Ananda Bose had followed suit.
"There are serious concerns about the severity and proportionality of its proposed punishments for rape and sexual assault," top sources told The Sunday Guardian.
The main controversy revolves around the Bill's proposal to increase minimum sentences for rape from the existing 10 years under Section 64 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita to "life imprisonment for the remainder of the convict's natural life or capital punishment."
This story is from the July 27, 2025 edition of The Sunday Guardian.
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