NEW DELHI: Taking a stand contrary to popular demands, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Thursday that it was not in favour of amending laws to provide for death penalty to those found guilty of sexual assaults on infants and children.

At a time when the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has introduced a bill providing death penalty for those sexually assaulting children, additional solicitor general P S Narasimha told the SC that “death penalty is not an answer to everything”.

The ASG was responding to a plea from petitioner advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava for a direction to the government to enact a law providing for capital punishment to those who rape children.

Narasimha said the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act provided graded stringent punishment for sexual assault of children — a minimum 10-year term and maximum life imprisonment for raping a child while the punishment for a minor’s gang rape ranged between a 20-year term and life imprisonment.

