Postponed in 2013 amidst the outrage following the Nirbhaya rape case, the issue of making sexual offences gender neutral was once again brought before Parliament on Friday. Senior lawyer and Parliamentarian KTS Tulsi introduced a private members bill before the Rajya Sabha to introduce amendments in the criminal laws to make sexual offences gender neutral.

Speaking to India Today TV, KTS Tulsi said that he would be sending the bill to several members of Parliament as it was a "social issue and not a political issue".

"Law needs to be balanced. The balance has been disturbed. All sexual offences should be gender neutral. Men, women, and other genders can be perpetrators and also victims of these offences. Men, women and others need to be protected," Tulsi said.

The bill proposes amendments in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Criminal procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act to ensure that the words "any man" and "any woman" in the sections relating to sexual offences in the laws are changed to read as "any person".

This would extend the protection of the law to women, men and transgender persons.

The bill also points out that there has been a "spate of incidents resulting in injuries, psychological trauma and death of persons at the hands of offenders belonging to either gender or sex on account of various sexual offences and exploitation committed against them".

Apart from other changes, the bill also calls for inserting a new offence in the rape laws - to include punishment for "touching" without penetration of the genitals of the victim.

It calls for the insertion of S375A in the IPC, to punish "sexual assault" defined as "intentionally touches the genitals, anus or breast of the person or makes the person touch the vagina, penis, anus or breast of that person or any other person, without the other person's consent except where such touching is carried out for proper hygienic or medical purposes".

While changes in S375 under the 2013 amendment act redefined 'rape' as penetration or insertion and introduced stricter punishment for sexual harassment and molestation under section 354, this provision calls for a new offence of "sexual assault" which would carry a punishment of up to three years imprisonment.

The statement of objects for the bill claims that it is meant to "provide for effective protection of the Constitutional rights of all persons vulnerable to sexual exploitation and offences, to punish acts of sexual assault and rape of all persons including but not limited to men and transgender persons in addition to the protection afforded to women under the existing penal laws and punish offenders of any sex or gender thereto".

Interestingly, by changing the definition of the perpetrator and victim of sexual assault from "man " and "woman" to "any person", the bill allows for recognition of not only transgender persons defined as the 'other' gender under Indian law, but would potentially leave the door open for the recognition of other gender identities.

The issue was raised in a PIL before the Supreme Court last year. The court had then declined to pass any orders, noting that the matter required legislation to be passed, which was the domain of Parliament.