She was speaking at a conference called ‘Negotiating Spaces, Looking Back’. ‘Looking Forward – Rape Law Reforms in India’ organized by Majlis
She was speaking at a conference called ‘Negotiating Spaces, Looking Back’. ‘Looking Forward – Rape Law Reforms in India’ organized by Majlis
Retired Bombay High Court judge Sadhna Jadhav on Saturday called for sensitizing doctors and judges while dealing with cases of rape and sexual assault on women and children.
She was speaking at a one-day conference titled ‘Negotiating Spaces, Looking Back’. ‘Looking Forward – Rape Law Reforms in India’, organized by Majlis, is a non-governmental organization that provides social and legal assistance to women and children victims of sexual and domestic violence.
The session ‘Judicial Expectations of Cleaning Evidence’ was chaired by Audrey Dumelo, director of Majlis, which runs a survivor support program called Rahat. Rebecca John, senior Supreme Court advocate, said most rape cases today are either under-investigated or over-investigated, like the Tarun Tejpal case (a former journalist who raped his younger colleague in 2013). He pointed out that forensic evidence in many rape cases was not scientific evidence, and the extent to which courts relied on DNA reports. “Ordinarily, the testimony of the complainant should be sufficient, but the court always adds a prefix to it, ‘superfluous testimony'”, he added.
Dr. Amar Jesani, co-founder of the Forum for Medical Ethics Society, had quoted the recent observation of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, “Whoever conducts a two-finger test in cases of sexual harassment, will be guilty of misconduct. ” “What about misconduct on the part of police and judges,” he had asked.
Justice Jadhav said, “If we need sensitization of judges, we also need sensitization of doctors… When a rape victim comes to the court with a complaint, it is not wrong on the part of the court to corroborate the evidence.” ..” He said.
Retired Justice Prabha Sridevan of the Madras High Court spoke on the ‘ideal victim concept’ and said, “The ideal victim is a paradox.” “Are all police officers and judges identifying themselves with the accused… why do they need an ideal victim..? We need to target children from class one to five,” he asked. , they need to learn the language of equality.”
Farah Naqvi, co-founder of Nirantar, an NGO working in the field of gender and education, highlighted the need to codify rape in conflict situations as a hate crime.
Ms. Naqvi also referred to incidents where houses and livelihoods of people of a community were bulldozed in different parts of the country by the government and said, “Today the victims have become criminals and are in jail.”