EDITORIAL: Endorse the rules

If Crime Victim Protection Rules comes into force, the crime victims will definitely benefit from it in many ways

In order to impart impartial, free and fair justice, the state should provide total protection to crime victims from being threatened, harassed or intimidated from a perpetrator who might use his/her clout to get the justice in his/her favour.

In many cases, crime victims do not dare to come forward to lodge their complaints against the perpetrator at a police station or in the court of law for fear of their life. Such things happen in the rural areas, where police presence is almost zilch. The constitution and relevant laws provide protection to the crime victims. But the legal provision has not been implemented in the real sense for want of Crime Victim Protection Rules due to which affected persons have not been able to benefit from the full protection of the law.

The Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs has already sent a draft of the rules to the council of ministers for its approval. But it is not clear when the cabinet will give its consent to it. As per the constitutional provision, all laws related to the fundamental rights should have been formulated within three years from the date of commencement of the constitution.

But the government has yet to frame the rules even after five years of the constitution.

According to legal experts, separate rules are needed to provide case related information and compensate the crime victims, treat victims in need of medical care, ensure in-camera proceeding for crime victims and provide relief and compensation in cases where the accused have not been identified.

These are the basic things the state must do to guarantee the fundamental rights of the citizens.

Rape victims, for example, need special protection from the state. A rape victim’s identity should be protected by the investigation body. Most of the rape cases and cases related with girl and woman trafficking are not reported to police on time because of social, mental and physical trauma the victims have to face throughout their life. In such cases the police must ensure that the victims will get full protection from the perpetrator(s).

The new rules to be endorsed by the cabinet should also have a provision of providing interim relief or compensation to the crime victims. The victims can also file an application with the police during investigation and with the court after the chargesheet has been filed, stating the economic, mental, physical and educational impact they have sustained due to the offence. This provision may serve act as a deterrent to other would-be offenders. Recently the government issued an ordinance criminalising the reconciliation of rape case between the perpetrator and the rape victim outside the court of law. The ordinance has led to the arrests of many people in the rural areas for their role in forcing the rape victims to reconcile with that of the perpetrators. If the Crime Victim Protection Rules comes into force without further delay, the crime victims will definitely benefit from it in many ways. It behooves the government to protect the rights of the crime victims by introducing the rules as per the legal provisions. The government cannot promote the rule of law unless it enforces rules to execute the law.

Grants standard

The Institutional Grants Standard recently introduced by the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens mainly aims at ensuring transparency and proper utilisation of grants to be provided by the government to orgranisations working in the area of the rights of women, children, senior citizens and differently-abled persons. The standard clearly states that any organisation registered with the concerned government agency and having at least five years of work experience shall be eligible to receive the grants.

As there are hundreds of CBOs and NGOs which are working in the area of the rights of women, children, senior citizens and differently-abled persons, grants should only be released to those CBOs and NGOs that have a proven track record of operation.

Even after the formulation of the IGS, it will be a very challenging task for the concerned government agencies to coordinate and collaborate with various organisations for the protection, security, rescue, relief, rehabilitation and nurture of the needy. So, the ministry must have a monitoring mechanism of the organisations on a regulation basis to ascertain whether they are operating the programmes for benefit of the target groups.

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