The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly passed the Andhra Pradesh Disha Bill, 2019 (Andhra Pradesh Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2019). The bill provides for awarding death sentence for offenses of rape and gang-rape and expediting trials of such cases to within 21 days.

Key Highlights

• In the Andhra Pradesh Disha Act, 2019, the Andhra Pradesh government will establish, operate and maintain a register in electronic form, to be called the ‘Women & Children Offenders Registry’.
• The Act envisages the completion of investigation in seven days and trial in 14 working days, where there is adequate conclusive evidence, and reducing the total judgment time to 21 days from the existing four months. The AP Disha Act also prescribes life imprisonment for other sexual offenses against children and includes Section 354 F and 354 G in IPC.
• In cases of harassment of women through social or digital media, the Act states two years imprisonment for the first conviction and four years for second and subsequent convictions. For this, a new Section 354 E will be added to IPC, 1860.