The Union Cabinet has approved the introduction of the Criminal Law (Amendment ) Bill, 2012, in Parliament to broaden the scope of the legal offence of sexual assault to ensure more stringent punishments for sexual offences including rape.

The Bill envisages to make rape a gender-neutral offence by replacing the word 'rape' with the phrase 'sexual assault'.

The amendment would expand the definition so that cases of sexual assault where the victims are male, would also fall under the same law along with cases where the victims were women.

The punishment for sexual assault will be a minimum of seven years which may be extended to imprisonment for life.

For aggravated sexual assault, the punishment will be rigorous imprisonment not less than ten years which may extend to life imprisonment and also fine.