In contrast, the Muluki Ain—which the bill, along with the Civil Code bill, will replace— says that the offender struck by the victim in self defence has to die within an hour of the incident for the rape victim to be acquitted of murder.  The clause also allows the rape victim to pursue the rapist and kill the person within an hour of rape.

 The bill was tabled at Parliament on November 2.

The bill says that if a victim immediately strikes a person who she thinks is assaulting her with an intention to rape her or who is raping her or has just raped her and the person dies, the death will not be considered a murder.

The definition of the term ‘immediately’ is at the discretion of the judiciary. “The time limit in the Muluki Ain is to give the victim of rape a chance to protect her chastity and retaliate if it’s under attack.

It is also to make sure that the victim of rape does not misuse the right to self-defence and plan the murder of the rapist afterwards,”

says Tek Nath Dhungana, spokesperson for the Ministry of Law. 

But the time-limit has been rarely used in defence in courts and has instead created a lot of ambiguity and confusion, say lawyers. In a widely-reported case, in 2009, a woman of Kavre hit a man with a hoe when he tried to rape her. But the man died ten hours after the incident and the woman was sentenced to four years in prison.

It is to avoid such lapses in justice that the Criminal Code bill has done away with the time limit, says Dharma Poudel, district judge in Banke. “People should be able to exercise their right to self-defence without having to worry about the consequences should the offender die.