SPEECH OF HON’BLE GOVERNOR PUNJAB AND ADMINISTRATOR, UT CHANDIGARH, SHRI BANWARILAL PUROHIT ON THE OCCASION OF EIGHT INTERNATIONAL AND TWELFTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE OF INDIAN SOCIETY OF VICTIMOLOGY ON SECURING JUSTICE TO VICTIMS OF CRIME ON NOVEMBER 3, 202

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It brings me great pleasure to deliver this Inaugural Address at the Eighth International and Twelfth Biennial Conference of the Indian Society of Victimology on the very important topic of ‘Securing Justice to Victims of Crime’ here at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law.

I am sure that the next couple of days will invigorate our thinking and actions to mitigate human sufferings, anguish and despair through the deliberations to be undertaken by the experts of victimology and victim justice.

I believe, Conferences such as this one, must not be perceived as a mere academic exchange of theoretical domain knowledge, but as an event with profound real world implications.

A just law is a necessary precondition to any organised and structured society. Similarly, a polity that seeks to mature into an established democracy cannot do so without adhering to rule of law. The constitutional morality of our forefathers as also the constitutional morality of our times, requires that we must ensure rule of law and not rule by law. In this sense, values such as equality, liberty, justice, accountability, openness and transparency, all contribute significantly towards the attainment of constitutional goals and aspirations.

Victimology is a language of empathy and follows a spirit of alleviating the pains of people arising out of crime and other sources. This is the high time that the victimological foundations must find a place in our criminal justice administration.

Further, the safety of the life, limb and property of the citizens remains the paramount duty of democratically elected governments. It is a legitimate expectation of a citizen from the State that it would press efficient and effective justice systems into practise and enact holistic penal laws.

The fact remains that while there might be little consensus as to the questions of what should be criminalised and what should not be criminalised, there is by and large a strong consensus that no modern society can survive without the institution of criminal law and justice .

Therefore, it becomes trite to say that criminal law has an unparalleled impact upon the lives of citizens. By directly prohibiting conduct which is harmful for the individual and the society, criminal law protects the liberty of the citizens and restrains it at the same time. In this sense, criminal law is the best mirror of a civilisation .

The manner in which a State arranges the institutions of criminal justice - police, prosecutor, courts and prisons reflects upon the progressiveness of the country and its political system. So does the manner in which the State applies and implements criminal law itself .

Friends,

Within adversarial legal traditions such as ours, the trial inadvertently becomes a contest between the State and the accused. In this understanding, a crime is deemed to be an offence against the society and the state. Consequently, the State takes on the role of the prosecutor - relentless in its pursuit of bringing the offender to justice.

The focus of criminal law in this sensehas traditionally been upon the functionaries of criminal law and the accused. In other words, a great deal of attention so far has been paid by scholars, policy and law makers on how the accused interacts with the police, prosecution, courts and prisons.

With the object to protect the accused from being dealt with unfairly and unjustly, the legislature as well as the Courts have recognised and afforded several crucial rights to the accused . Through a plethora of judgments and legislations, the accused have been granted the right to fair investigation, right against arbitrary arrest, right to a fair trial, right against being handcuffed , right against self incrimination, right against retrospective application of criminal law, right to legal representation and the right to free legal aid etc.

The importance of these rights cannot be overstated given that they support the due process values which underpin our criminal justice system. Nevertheless, the focus upon the accused and his interaction with the criminal justice system has blinded us from recognising another important stakeholder of the justice system . There can be no offence unless there is a person who has been offended against or to whom the offence has been caused. In other words, there cannot be a crime or a criminal unless there is a victim. Yet, the absence of a focus upon the victims in our legal discourse baffles the mind .

It is the victims which suffer the primary harm. They suffer direct harm to their mind, body, property and reputation. In addition to physical injuries, victims have to deal with emotions ranging from helplessness, anger and stress to anxiety, depression and trauma . Dealing with such direct impacts is hard, but dealing with indirect impacts of victimisation is even harder.

The victims suffer a loss of trust and faith in the society and the justice system. The loss of the sense of being protected from offences opens them up to a sense of vulnerability. This feeling of insecurity can potentially disable the victim from performing simple everyday chores like going to a market or visiting a friend, which are otherwise taken for granted. Victimisation often carries with it a social stigma. The suffering of the victim extends to the personal relationships, social relationships and also professional relationships.

It is an unfortunate truth that the response of our criminal justice system remains blissfully ignorant of all these aspects of victimisation. After a victim registers their FIR, the victim is left to their own resources.

Concepts and terminologies like “psychological first aid” and “victim counselling” are non-existent in the vocabulary of our functionaries . In a system where such basic and primary aid is missing, one can hardly expect secondary assistance such as establishing institutional contact with the support groups or ensuring that the victimisation does not lead to a loss of employment or pay. Our criminal justice system requires immense maturation in order to account for all that the victim goes through as a result of their victimisation.

Victims are integral actors in a criminal process. No criminal justice system can be triggered without the involvement of a victim . Victim depositions are the most crucial resources for investigators as well as sterling evidence for the Court. The testimony of the victim can either make or break a case. This understanding of the role of victim in our criminal process has deterred our criminal justice systems from expanding the role of the victims at the stage of investigations, trial and sentencing.

In perceiving the criminal process as a contest between the State and the accused, we are fundamentally ignoring victims as stakeholders with equal participatory rights. In taking over the role of the prosecutor, the State undeniably sidelines the victim. The aspirations and needs of the victim becomes a secondary consideration.

The primary concern of the trial is the search for the truth. But before we take this statement on its face value, we must ask the question - who’s truth? Is the criminal process in search of the State’s truth? That the offence must be discovered and punished. Or is the criminal process solely geared towards the accused’s truth? That the accused must be protected against the abuse of power by the State. In the middle of this tussle, we need to ask ourselves - what about the victim’s truth? The truth that it is ultimately the victim who is affected primarily by the offence and therefore must be placed in the centre of our criminal process as well.

Recently, in the case of Jagjeet Singh v. Ashish Mishra , the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has opined without prejudice to the facts of the case, that victims too have ‘unbridled’ participatory rights from the stage of registration of FIR itself . Noble as the words of the Hon’ble Supreme Court are, there is much that is needed to be done before the victim’s right to participation in a trial becomes a solemn duty of the criminal process . We must start thinking about the means and ways to make victim participation a reality.

The denial of the right to participation is a prime example of secondary victimisation by the very institutions that seek to uphold the banner of justice. In refusing to register an FIR, the victim is harassed unncessarily. In not being allowed meaningful participation in the trial, unsubserviated to the prosecutor’s office, the victim is unfairly denied his right to participation. In not taking the concerns of the victim and the impact of the crime upon the victim during consideration at the stage of sentencing, the victim is victimised secondarily by the courts of justice themself . Victims have been deprived of their voice. This position must change.

To achieve the change, we must herald an age of victim rights, both inside and outside the criminal process . We must adopt the positive language and vocabulary that the domain of victimology brings to the table. We must begin tospeak not in terms of injury, offence andharm BUT in terms of mediation, restoration, restitution and compensation.

Justice cannot be achieved through a reprimand of criminal law within formalistic courtroom settings. There is much that the victim can teach about the other conceptions of justice. Justice in a substantive sense. Justice in a restorative sense. Justice in a distributive sense. Justice in an affirmative sense .

The time is now ripe for legislation aimed at securing comprehensive rights for the victims of crime. While the crime victims in India are certainly not right-less. The rights accorded to them have to be extracted from scattered provisions in multiple legislations and a handful of landmark judgments. We must work to remove these impediments to victim justice by consolidating and expanding the rights of the victim .

Such a comprehensive legislation must seek to secure for the victim theright of access to justice,the right to be informed, the right to participation, the right to legal assistance, the right to medical assistance, the right to social assistance, the right to protection against secondary victimisation, right to protection as a witness in the criminal justice system, the right to compensation and the right to restitution . All of these rights can be traced back to fundamental rights venerated in the Constitution of India .

At the same time, we must keep in mind that mere recognition of a rights based legal regime for victims would be meaningless without expressly laying down the duties of the functionaries of the criminal justice system toward the victims of crime . As it currently stands, the police, prosecutors, judges and advocates have little accountability in the discharge of any formal or substantive duties towards the victims of crime.

We must ensure that these front line professionals are sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the victims of crime . All functionaries must be imparted regular sensitisation training that are aimed at providing help to the victims of crime while ensuring that the victim’s sense of security is restored. They must be trained to shelve their personal and social biases in the discharge of their public functions and that they operate without any heed to personal opinions and family or social values. They must be taught to act with respect to the dignity of the victim.

Information is power. In a country where twenty percent of the country is still uneducated and where poverty is ripe, it would be fallacious to assume that victims would be aware of their rights. It must be a solemn duty of the functionaries to make the victims aware of their rights within the criminal justice system. The functionaries must also work to protect these rights as opposed to violate them.

The functionaries must also act without fear or favour. Victims, especially those from marginalised backgrounds, may often be unable to exert political influence to trigger criminal justice processes . The functionaries must enable such victims, not disable them. The functionaries must also take into consideration victims with special needs. Victims of sexual assault, acid attack, SC/ST Act or those suffering from disability require special care and attention. Only the functionaries operating at the front lines can ensure that such victims are able to achieve justice in the most comprehensive sense of the term.

None of this would of course be possible without academia stretching the boundaries of our knowledge in the field of victimology and victim justice . I am happy to note that Prof. (Dr.) G. S. Bajpai, Vice-Chancellor, at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab has instituted the Centre for Criminology, Criminal Justice and Victimology to further this objective.

It is the duty of research centres such as CCV as well as individual scholars, academics and researchers to challenge the dominant understanding of criminal justice through victimological perspectives. You must enhance our understanding of what it means to be a victim. It is only your work which can aid the lawmakers by asking them to wear the shoes of a victim and to walk a mile before legislating on criminal law.

This conference is an opportunity for us all to advocate, in our own way, for the victims. We must put our heads together to think and explore the ways in which we can ensure justice to victims of crime.

I wish to Congratulate the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law for this unique endeavour. I am also aware that this University in the recent past has achieved several landmark achievements making all us so proud.

I am sure the deliberations held in this Conference will shape our thinking and ideas for revisiting our laws and policies to make this world a safer and happier place.

Thank you,

JAI HIND.