Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 10
The sordid story of an 11-year-old rape victim’s trauma revolving around her inability to get pregnancy terminated, coupled with loopholes in the preliminary investigation carried out by the police, unfolded itself during a special training session organised for the presiding officers of POCSO Courts and other judicial officers.
Multiple hurdles
Dr Shipra Gupta, PU Associate Professor, has underscored hurdles in rendering justice to rape victims in the light of a casual approach to investigation; medical and legal issues in getting the pregnancy terminated; punishment to the offenders; adequacy of compensation to the victims, etc.
Invited as a speaker by the Bihar Judicial Academy, the Associate Professor in Panjab University’s Department of Laws, Dr Shipra Gupta, presented a case study on the minor’s rape in Chandigarh, while touching upon the sensitive issue of medical termination of pregnancy.
The victim was denied permission to get the pregnancy terminated due to strict laws. A medical board was constituted to examine her case for termination of pregnancy pursuant to a public interest litigation. But the board did not allow the same on the medical grounds. Resultantly, the 11-year-old gave birth to a baby girl.
Dr Gupta added initial investigation was solely based on the victim’s statement. Once the name of an accused was disclosed, the investigation was restricted to him only. Further probe was not carried by the investigating agencies. It was only after the DNA matching for determining the paternity excluded the accused, concerns were raised about the involvement of someone else in her pregnancy. The reinvestigation of the case brought out the name of another accused, who turned out to be the biological father of the newborn girl following DNA profiling.
“A lack of broad-based approach in the investigation right from the beginning turned out to be the biggest lapse. Another hurdle identified in the case was the time taken for constituting the medical board for opinion on terminating her pregnancy,” Dr Gupta added.
She underscored hurdles in rendering justice to the rape victims in the light of a casual approach to investigation; medical and legal issues in getting the pregnancy terminated; punishment to the offenders; adequacy of compensation to the victims etc. The judicial officers shared their own experiences in dealing with such cases in the courts and also highlighted the practical challenges in delivering justice. The judicial officers of Bihar, as per their experience, brought out the fact of insensitivity on the part of the doctors in dealing with such cases. According to them, the reporting of the doctors in such cases is generally incomplete and they usually do not mention about the scars and injuries on the body of the victims, which would otherwise be helpful in the prosecution case.
