A woman should be allowed to have a baby out of rape and/or marry the man and drop the rape charge if she so wishes, KG Balakrishnan has said.
A woman should be allowed to have a baby out of rape and/or marry the man and drop the rape charge if she so wishes, Chief Justice of India (CJI) KG Balakrishnan has said.
He also urged judges, lawyers and social activists to ensure that they don’t adopt an “overtly paternalistic” approach in taking decisions for the welfare of rape victims. The CJI was speaking at a seminar on Sunday.
Balakrishnan’s words are significant, considering the fact that in 2008, more than 20,000 rapes (estimates say only one in 69 cases are reported in the country) were registered and in a staggering 92% of those cases, the perpetrators were known to the victim.
An uncontested report says India is one of the worst places for a woman to live in because of poor personal safety and security. A total of 57 rape cases are recorded here every day and this number is 800% more than the seven cases a day recorded in 1971.
Currently, one of four crimes in India is rape. Every hour, there are 20 crimes committed against women and of all the rapes, only 20% actually see conviction for the offenders. Delhi has the disrepute of being the country’s rape capital, as one-third of rapes are reported here.
The chief justice spoke of the need to give the victims shelter, counselling, medical and legal aid since convicting rapists won’t alone help them. He mooted creation of a fund to rehabilitate and provide succour to rape victims through district legal service authorities. “The Union and state governments should create the fund for compensation to rape victims,” he said. This could be disbursed through district legal service authorities.
Without mentioning the Ruchika Girhotra molestation-suicide case, Balakrishnan expressed concern at “some recent cases’’ that exposed the investigative machinery and its manipulation by men in power to protect influential persons.
The chief justice also spoke out against insensitivity towards the victim, especially during court proceedings. “Judges need to be proactive to restrain the aggressive cross-examination of rape victims,’’ Balakrishnan said. He highlighted changes in law that ignores the past sexual history of victims. The amended Indian Evidence Act says that a victim’s past sexual history cannot be given weightage in a rape trial.
“Judges and lawyers should internalise the principle that facts relating to the sexual history of a victim should not be brought up since the trial’s purpose is to decide whether the offence took place.”
(With inputs from Vineeta Pandey)
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