The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Call to recognise rights of crime victims

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 09, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Call to recognise rights of crime victims

Special Correspondent

It will lend credibility to criminal justice system: A.P. Shah

CHENNAI: "It is high time that the rights of victims of crime are recognised in this country. It will, in the longer run, help in checking the rise in crime rate and also bring credibility to the criminal justice system," Chief Justice of Madras High Court A.P. Shah has said.

Inaugurating the three-day second International and Sixth Biennial Conference of the Indian Society of Victimology here, he said victims were the forgotten people in the criminal justice system. For the victim, moving a court or approaching the police was not an attractive proposition. The police not only discouraged victims but also made them objects of ridicule. The victim hardly had any role to play in the criminal justice system, except that, if alive, he might be examined as a prosecution witness. An accused had the statutory right to be heard on the question of quantum of sentence after conviction was recorded. But unfortunately a victim of crime was not so heard.

Mr. Shah felt that the Cr.P.C. provisions for compensation to victims were inadequate, and were not used by courts many times.

The procedure for getting compensation was time-consuming, and compensation was meagre. A comprehensive legislation providing for victims' rights was necessary. Due to the absence of such a law, many judges found it difficult to view victims as having a legitimate role in the judicial process. Even at the time of awarding the sentence, judges could hear victims on compensation.

World Society of Victimology president John P.J. Dussich said there had been amazing progress in victim rights in India and in a few other developing countries. But most had done almost nothing in comparison.

"Only the surface has been scratched; much, very much, is yet to be done." The challenge before victimologists was how they could move nations to act on behalf of their own victims.

K. Chockalingam, president, Indian Society of Victimology, said though India had ratified the U.N. Declaration on the Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power, 1985, the principles remained only on paper.

R.K.Raghavan, chairman, organising committee, R. Thilagaraj, chairman, programme committee and M. Srinivasan, secretary, organising committee, traced the origin of the Society and the significance of the conference.

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