Centre to prepare National Sex Offenders List, make it public: Home Ministry to SC

The ministry also added that it will introduce two new schemes to tackle the issue of rising cyber crimes.

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The Home Ministry on Monday informed the Supreme Court that the Centre will prepare a National Sex Offenders List, which will name people who have been charge-sheeted for sexual offences against women, and will make it public, The Times of India reported.

"The sex offenders registry in Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) is proposed to be a consolidated national registry of charge-sheeted offenders in cases pertaining to sections acts specific to crime against women, for example Section 375 (rape), 376A (intercourse by a man with his wife during separation) and 376B (sexual favours taken by a superior officer from a junior)," TOI quoted the ministry as telling the apex court.

The ministry filed the affidavit after the SC asked additional solicitor general Maninder Singh about the steps which had been taken by the government to deal with increasing number of cyber crimes against women. The apex court was taking suo motu note of the MMS clips of sexual assault on a woman circulating online, states the report.

"A detailed concept note (on national sex offenders list) has been prepared and shared with concerned members for their comments. A module for the same is being finalised developed under Central Citizen Portal in CCTNS project under discussion with the stakeholders, including National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)," the ministry said in the affidavit.

The ministry also added that it will introduce two new schemes to tackle the issue of rising cyber crimes.

"In principle approval of the minister for home affairs has been obtained for two schemes -for setting up Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) with an estimated cost of Rs 464.28 crore from the allocated budget of MHA, and a Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC) unit with an estimated cost of Rs 244.32 crore (from Nirbhaya Fund)," the affidavit by Vedantam Giri, joint secretary in MHA, said, according to TOI.