It is an agonising discussion to have in a culture where first thing every parent tries to teach his little ones is to respect his elders and women in the family, but I feel it’s the need of the hour to have such a discussion with every responsible person of the society. Frankly at this point, it is now no longer just women safety that one needs to address in these discussions but also topics that revolve around these topics that one has always tries to avoid. We will be talking about all such topics in detail one by one.
Have women ever felt safe in this country?
I do not know about if it is correct or not, but in my
limited observation women safety has been always been a neglected topic in this
country. Just by making laws and prosecuting individuals behind closed doors,
with the victim suffering from long stretched investigations, then lengthy trials
and ever tumbling reputation of her and her family during such trials, the people
responsible cannot be allowed to just call it a day by criticizing action of
the accused on stage for a day or two or suggesting vague laws to get strict in
favour of women, then go to sleep peacefully. One needs to hold people accountable
for their actions or omissions. And I am not just talking about the accused/
wrongdoer in such offences, the ones that moulded him into a criminal or the
ones who pushed him towards that point or the ones who shielded him of his wrongdoings
or the ones who kept quiet when they should have spoken about it are equally
responsible.
I remember I was in my final year of my law college when the
infamous Nirbhaya Gang rape happened in Delhi and all my colleagues, friends,
family were stunned at the sheer gruesome details that came out of the
investigation of the incident. Something got triggered inside me and I started
following all the news channels and websites that were telling the details of
the case so as to gather information and to actually try to do my contribution
as a legal professional in the society. Over the time this was a money-making
subject for the news channels and just like me millions of people like me
wanted to know the intricate details about the subject for reasons best known
to them. Some time passed, the trial started and people started to forget the
issue arising out of this incident. The movement that started with this
incident started to fade away as people had moved on to other “news items”. It was almost as if the people believed it was
a one-off incident and nothing like this had happened before this incident nor
will it happen after this incident. The politicians responsible played cards
right and transferred blame to each other and brought in some heavy changes to
the criminal legal system and then buried their necks again in the ground,
assuring innocent citizens that nothing similar would ever happen again because
laws have been changed with women safety in mind. But did it actually stop
incidents like Nirbhaya or we all missed the actual problem.
Recently on 31st August 2024, PM Narendra Modi
inaugurated the National Conference of District Judiciary in New Delhi where he
made a speech where he was addressing to the attendees, again raised the topic of
coming out with even stringent laws that exist at the time for helping women
safety. But the question that needs to be addressed is if the current laws are
incapable of ensuring women safety or if the current laws in place lack deterrence
demanded in such cases? Let’s dive into this.
First of all, for this situation, deterrence is a tool embedded
in laws, an after effect of sorts arising out of the actions one takes (example:
government punishing convicts) which makes the other person who might have a
criminal bent of mind and would have in absence of such action taken, resorted
to a similar criminal act, refrain from doing it by equating his actions and
the result it might generate. The deterrence overpowers his desires to resort
to crime, making him not do it.
In 2013-14, the laws in place were, with an amendment, made
even stringent than before and element of deterrence was preached by the
politicians. If their theory was correct then there wouldn’t have been any such
incidents against women again and people with criminal bent of mind would have
refrained from acts such as Rape, molestation, sexual harassment and other acts
against women. But the truth is that it stopped nothing and criminals kept
acting in the way as they would have if the amendment wasn’t there.
The point is that we collectively as a society have failed to
acknowledge the real problems responsible for degrading women safety in the
country. It’s not about more deterrence in laws that we need, that is sufficient
enough. It’s the application or execution of these laws that we have in place
for women safety. Its about the law enforcement bodies, politics, lengthy impotent
trials and bureaucracy that need our attention at this point.
In my opinion, if today such an incident that questions women
safety happened, like the one happed in State of West Bengal against a women
doctor and hypothetically if the police without any delay took action against
the accused, arrested him and put him behind bars, then completed
investigation, gathered forensic and information relevant to the case, and submitted
it before time in the court of law from where the court of law tried the case in
a speedy manner and convicted the accused within 6 months of the incident
(which is certainly possible in theory, but remains a dream in practice), other
people with similar intentions would never resort to such crime.
This is because in the event of a crime against women that
happens today, the wrongdoer knows that first off police will be lethargic in
their actions and if they decide to take action, they can be corrupted to refrain
from framing him. It he fails at corrupting the cops, he knows that the investigation
would take its own sweet time and because of this he might exploit this loophole
to get out of jail for some time. If investigation is on time, then their will
exist loopholes in the investigation itself that can lend him a hand out of
jail. If the case does not get highlighted in the media and everything falls in
place, the trial in the court might just take 10-12 years to complete in place
of 6-7 years that it would take if it does get highlighted in media. Till then
the public sentiment would have died and as a result he would get a relaxed
punishment for his heinous crimes or might even escape entirely from any
punishment for various reasons. Even if he gets severe punishment or capital
punishment, he has option of further delaying the punishment by filing an
appeal to a higher court of law and in cases going before the Hon’ble president
of India by filing mercy petition before the office. This would further advance
4-5 years minimum for his case to reach finality.
Till all this happens and punishment reaches finality, the
wrongdoer would have approximately spent twenty plus years without having to
dealt with consequences for his crime. That in itself is major part of someone’s
life. And if he does not get capital punishment at the end of it or is not
awarded death by the courts, he would have had spent most of his life outside
jail even after committing the crime and now that he would be jailed, he can
enjoy his time inside feeding on amenities provided inside jail on expense of exchequers
money, giving false hope to people that he will be reformed by this whole
process. This in itself counters the very deterrence that may or may not have
been embedded in the laws by the draftsmen.
The only person who actually gets punished in this whole process
are the victim and their families. Everyone else involved in this will roam Scott
free.
I have tried to give solutions to the problems in sight. Following
is a list of solutions I prescribe to help our society overcome these illnesses.
·
Police Reforms:
Now more than ever, our society is feeling that there is need for police and
other law enforcement bodies to reform there was in which they act. The Police
Act was drafted in 1861 and for Delhi, the Delhi police Act was drafted in
1978. Its high time we not just change these laws for just the purpose of
removing colonial era mindset, but transform them into laws providing mechanism
for speedy and effective justice to all. This can be done if the hierarchy and
the different ranks, their powers, duties are revised in order to make it much
more responsive. There are other demands that are emerging for integrating public
redressal mechanisms and having inhouse bodies specifically responsible for
eliminating corruption and improving efficacy of process. This topic in itself can
be explored in a separate article on this blog, so stay tuned.
·
Processes To Reduce Impact of Politics After Such Incidents: For me the second most important cause
of concern is the politics that happens after such an incident. The politicians
mainly have their focus on degrading the other party and trying their best to get
the sentiment against other party on one side and politicians on the other side
try their best to defend the blows and secure public sentiment. This continues
throughout the time such incident is in public eyes and hence result in public losing
the sight of the real problem. Politicians have to act maturely when such crime
is committed and try their best to not influence the proceedings. This alone
would help a lot to help victims of crime get justice.
·
Better Implementation of Laws: as discussed previously, laws are not the problem but how they
are implemented is. In our country if the cases are seen in the light of the maxim
“Justice delayed is justice denied”, I am afraid if even one person would be
able to claim he got justice in courts of law of our country. This needs to
change, from bureaucracy to courts of law, everyone has the duty to make the
process less cumbersome for the common man. It can’t be denied that efforts
have been made in this direction but clearly, they haven’t been up to the mark
and a lot more needs to be done.
·
Public Opinion and Public Sentiments: when such incidents happen, common man is the first
to jump the gun and form opinions regarding case that may directly affect the
end result of the case. When the general public forms a sentiment due to reasons
of anger or sadness, the judiciary feels obligated to counter such public
sentiments to try to ensure justice but in doing so on many occasions actions
are overcompensated to a point that justice cannot be said to have been served.
This needs to stop or at least be controlled. Further the public must ensure
that these sentiments and opinions have germinated from the crime and till the
criminal is subjected to justice, the memory does not fade away. It must be
kept alive and one must not just treat such incidents as one-off incidents. Interlinking
of such incidents are important.
·
Role of Media:
It is important for the media and professionals in the field of journalism to
keep the sentiments alive till justice is served. At the very least try to not to
let the feeble memory of public get to them.
Conclusion
In conclusion I feel that our country has enough of stringent
laws in place and the main problem that lies at present is the implementation
of laws and everything around it. Till this is not reformed, please do not
expect anything to change. Till we do not change, nothing will change nor will there
be anyone who will bring about that change which we desire. Such infamous
incidents should act as eyeopeners to the society and if they fail to ignite a
revolution be prepared to keep mumbling about the same problems throughout your
life.
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