Victim Jurisprudence

By- Akanksha Sharma

“Justice delayed is Justice denied”i this is not an easy one to understand because defining
delay in itself is very subjective in nature and even without clarification.

Over four decades back Justice Krishna Iyer had stated “Its weakness of our jurisprudence
that victims of crime and distress of the dependents of the victims do not attract the attention
of law. In fact, the victim compensation is still the vanishing point of our criminal law. This
is the deficiency in the system which must be rectified by the legislature.”

History

The power of victim during the Rigvedic period was so vast that he can even punish the
offender but slowly the power was taken by the state (king in ancient India and government
in modern India). The laws at that time were not diverse, they all have laid down more or less
same rules, under the laws of Vishnu, Yajnavalkya, Narada, Brishpati, manu or smriti victim
of crime get compensation and offender has to pay a fine to the king. Herein, the main
principle followed is of compensation not punishment but during the Vedic period, the varna
system was introduced in which administration of justice and infliction of punishment was
introduced and followed. Judgement of crime and punishment inflicted upon the offender was
made in accordance with the class or varna of the victim.

In the 1700s, Indians followed the tribal law under which, the respond collectively to criminal
offences and any transgression against the tribe as a whole. The tribe, in essence,
appropriated a victim’s concerns. The main purpose was re- establishment of tribal authority
and the securing of optimal conditions for survival as a whole.

Studies related to crime victim in India started in late 1970s. In 1984 the first seminar on
victimology was organized. Finally in 1992 Indian society of victimology was found with a
motive of creating new laws for victims and spreading awareness regarding this issue. During
the 1980s and 1990s victimology has gone through rapid and fundamental development, it
was a period of fortifying, dta collection and theorization combined with new laws.

Introduction
The Modern Crime Victims Rights Movement began more than 30 years ago and aspired to
improve the treatment of crime victims in the justice system. This Movement has since
evolved into “one of the most successful civil liberties movement of recent times.” In Linda
R.S. the Supreme Court’s holding was that the victim could not demonstrate a nexus between
the prosecutor’s alleged discriminatory enforcement of the child support statue and the
women’s failure to secure child support payments and as such the victim did not have
standing to seek the relief she requested. Nearly ten years after Linda R.S. in 1982, the final
report of the President’s Task Force on the Victims of Crime issued. Since that time the
Modern Crime Victims Rights Movement has aggressively aimed to create an independent
participatory role for crime victims in criminal justice proceedings.

33 States have amended their constitution address crime victim’s rights. In the federal
system, Congress passed the first of several pieces of crime victims’ rights legislation in
1982, the Victim and Witness Protection Act, and subsequently passed a series of laws,
successively giving greater legislative recognition to the rights of crime victims.

Victim and Witness Protection Act 1982- The Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982
(VWPA) was enacted “to enhance and protect the necessary role of crime victims and
witnesses in the criminal justice process; to ensure that the Federal government does all to
assist victims and witness of crime without violating on the constitutional rights of
defendants and so as to provide a legislation for state and local governments.”

In the current scenario, laws are evolving rapidly, new laws related to vulnerable sections of
people such as children, women, mentally ill and elders have been made to provide timely
justice and to mitigate the suffering of the victims. Laws such as The Protection of Women
from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior
Citizens Act, 2007, Prevention of Child Abuse and Victim Protection, The Scheduled Castes
and the Scheduled Tribes(Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, are made to particularly to
prevent victimization and providing timely justice to special category in which they belong.

In order to overcome the challenges and provide assistance to victims, judiciary had taken
some steps. Briefly describing these sections as:

 Elderly Victims- Abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of elders by their family
members and others are very common these days, forms a base for victimization. In
order to protect them certain laws have been made such as The Maintenance and
 Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007[An Act to provide for more effective
provisions for the maintenance and welfare of parents and senior citizens guaranteed
and recognised under the Constitution and for matters connected therewith or
incidental thereto.]ii
 Child Victims- Lack of mental maturity, physical strength and gullible nature make
them highly dependent on their elders which automatically creates a need to
separately address and deal with them. Hence they require a separate treatment from
their elders. The laws made for children are specially child- centric and child- friendly
like Prevention of Child Abuse and Victim Protection, human trafficking and child
exploitation prevention act etc.
 Victims of sex offences- The most common type of victimization that prevails in our
society is mostly in the form of sexual pleasure and mostly women are targeted to
such types of victimization. These offences include rape, marital rapes, sexual assault,
stalking and many more comes under its ambit. It takes time to overcome this for the
women.
 Female victims- Today in 21st century itself we are still continuing to have a
Patriarchal Society. This society in itself victimizes women more than anything. The
National Commission for Women in India is the body that works for protecting and
promoting the interests and rights of women. These types of commissions spread
awareness among women about their rights.
 Minority groups and weaker sections- India is known to be the biggest Democracy of
the world, with its multilingualism and multiculturalism. Such disparity has lead to
minority and majority group. Therefore laws are made for the weaker sections of
society to protect them from the higher sections. The National Commission for
Scheduled Castes in India looks into the implementation of legislation like the
Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
Act, 1989[An Act to prevent the commission of offences of atrocities against the
members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, to provide for (Special
Courts and the Exclusive Special Courts) for the trial of such offences and for the
relief and rehabilitation of the victims of such offences and for matters connected
therewith or incidental thereto]iii
 The victims have the following rights under the Justice for All Act [The Justice for
All Act of 2004 was enacted to protect crime victims’ rights, eliminate the substantial
 backlog of DNA samples collected from crime scenes and convicted offenders, and
improve and expand the DNA testing capacity of federal, state, and local crime
laboratories]

The right to be reasonably protected from the

accused
The right to reasonable, accurate and timely notice
of any public court proceeding, or any parole
proceeding, involving the crime or of any release or
escape of the accused
The right not to be excluded from any such public
court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving
clear and convincing evidence, determines that
testimony by the victim would be materially altered
if the victim heard other testimony at that
proceeding
The right to be reasonably heard at any public
proceeding in the district court involving in the
district court involving the release, plea, sentencing
or any parole proceeding
The reasonable right to confer with the attorney for
the Government in the case
The right to full and timely restitution as provided in
law
The right to proceedings free from unreasonable
delay and
The right to be treated with fairness and with respect
for the victim’s dignity and privacy

Conclusion

It has been a long time after we have seen all these rights coming up for protection of victims
but even now we have not been able to provide timely justice to our citizens. The major
challanges that we are facing in preventing victimization are:

 Laws related to victimology

 Abuse of power
In a country like ours one cannot imagine to view a problem from one perspective. But the
problem could be only solved when it is analysed from each and every perspective.
Victimisation too has aspects of its own. As a victim of crime one is prone to experience
physical injuries and mental trauma which results in sometimes becoming a patient of Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder. Besides this regular visits to courts to seek justice results in pain ,
trauma, physical and financial impacts on victims.

What we need is to examine victims’ perceptions of justice in order to obtain a better

understanding of how to restore justice for victims.

References

 https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/DWZTZTfYOScT8inQuPCHAO/A-case-for-
lobbying-in-India.html
 https://mafiadoc.com/measures-for-crime-victims-in-the-indian-criminal-justice-
syatem_59ae53061723ddbfc5889807.html
i
Gladstone’s saying on Justice
ii
Available at :
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/13696/1/act_200756.pdf
[Last Visited- 5 July 2021]
iii
Available at:
https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A1989-33_2.pdf
[Last visited- 6 July 2021]