Cabinet Agrees To Reduce Age Of Consent To 16

New Delhi: The union cabinet cleared the anti-rape bill by agreeing to replace the word "sexual assault" with "rape" and reducing the age of consent from 18 to 16, informed sources said.

According to the bill, voyeurism, for the first time, would be a bailable offence while stalking would be a non-bailable offence, the sources said.

The sources said the cabinet cleared the bill at a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The cabinet had deferred a decision on the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill due to lack of unanimity.

A Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and set up by the prime minister to resolve differences, met Wednesday to thrash out pending issues, and agreed on replacing the word "sexual assault" with "rape" and reducing the age of consent from 18 to 16.

The GoM agreed to use the word "rape", where the victim was a woman and the perpetrator a male, since women activists were against the use of term "sexual assault", which would have made the bill gender neutral.

Sources said the government will now decide whether to go to the parliament directly with the bill or take the legislation to an all-party meeting March 18 called by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath to evolve consensus on the issue.

Kamal Nath has spoken to Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party leaders on the legislation, said sources.