Despite strong voices in support of an exclusive law to punish honour killings , the Prevention of crimes in the Name of Honour and Tradition Bill remains a non-starter.
The term “honour killing” does not exist in Indian Penal law. Crimes of this nature are dealt with as homicide or manslaughter. Hence, legal experts are at a loss to explain what constitutes an Honour killing.
A bouquet of law protects women and the disadvantaged sections against abundance forms of violence including those involving caste and community. If the victim of a criminal act is Dalit, provision of the Scheduled castes and the Scheduled Tribes( Prevention of atrocities) Amenemt (S.C./ S.T.) Act, 2015, are invoked. If they happen to be women or girls, laws such as the women harassment act and the Dowry Harassment act are applied. India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. But honour killing has taken centrestage in debates and discussions only since 2002 when the U.N. adopted a resolution on “Working towards the elimination of crime against women committed in the name of honour. Human rights watch describe honour killing as an act of violence against a female family member who is perceived to have brought dishonour on the family and the social group. The majority of the victims of such killings are Dalits and women.
In countries where honour killing by community or caste based extrajudicial groups or individuals has been reported, deliberations are underway to introduce a special piece of legislation. In many countries including India, although the police and the judiciary have started to differentiate between honour killing and homicide and filicide, for the victims it is a case of Justice delayed or justice denied. However, the proactive stand of the Supreme Court against the heinous crime and it’s out of the box interpretation of such a crime bring hope. Judgments in Honour killing cases have prompted even the lower judiciary to treat these crime as serious guard against bad and biases investigations. The state and other stakeholders have been forced to take a relook at the crime. On many occasions, the higher judiciary has ruled that there was nothing honourable in these killings.