Sunil Sethi
People’s Perspective
Many stories have been written and told about the criminal trials in the Court. Many books have been written on the crimes and the trial system and the justice supposedly delivered in trials. Many movies have been made dealing on the subjects of crime. Many epics have been written. But in most of the cases we find the tendency to glamourize the crime, and glamourize the criminals also and also to create glamour about the court system of dispensation of justice. How many books ,how many novels, how many stories, how many epics, we have to seek to find that in such episode, the criminal, the so called villain has also attributes of positivity and even if it is not there, how many people tend to find it. In the recent past, there is sudden abrupt in the movies trying to glamourize the criminals, the gangsters, the dons, then to some extent the heroes, the person who is on the side of righteousness. But in this whole system of crime, justice delivery system, trials, have we ever considered the perspective of the victim? .. the perspective of the family of the victim? .. the perspective of the persons who are connected with the victim? The whole system is to know what the criminal was thinking? What was in his mind when the crime was committed? We try to find justifications in the crimes which have been committed. We try to justify the mind set of the person who is the offender. We try to find justifications that what could have been the good reason to absolve the person of culpability, but we don’t understand and we don’t try to understand what was the mindset of the victim …. What was going on in the mind of the victim when he/she was subjected to crime. This attitude has to change. The time has come for this attitude to change. Without changing this attitude, we will neither be in a position to control the crime, nor will be in the position to give the directions to the society, where we can live all peacefully. Peaceful co-existence is the basic requirement of the society to flourish because if the sense of fear is there in the minds of the society, the lives will be meaningless, it will not be very fruitful. … The life will be burden, it will not be something to enjoy. It is showing ungratefulness to the creator, if we can’t enjoy the life, if we can’t live the life peacefully, if we can’t be the reason for the happiness to our co-humanity.
When we talk about the reasons behind the criminals committing crime, are we alive to the situation of the victim? A small girl 5-6 years of age who is subjected to rape, does the crime which is committed against us, finishes after the actual conclusion of the physical part … no. The very victim who has undergone the crime will continue to feel the pain throughout her life, whether she approaches Court, she doesn’t approach Court, whether she complains or she doesn’t complain, this pain is for her for whole of the life. The punishment has to be commensurate with the pains which are being caused to the victim and that is the most important thing. Do we appreciate the pain of a widow whose husband has been murdered? Do we understand the pains of the parents whose sons or whose daughters have been brutally murdered or assaulted? Can we ever measure the pain of a father or mother whose daughter is burnt alive or killed for dowry? Does our system understand the pain, problems and agonies of the people who have been divested of their properties by way of crime? We say crime is against the society but the crime is also against the victim. This whole system which takes into consideration the perspective of the accused, the perspective of our society has to take into consideration the perspective of the victim, because if that is not done the society will continue to fall and likely to go astray and we have to change the way we look to the victim. Victim does not require our sympathy as the victim does not require our hatred or anger. The victim requires us to stand with the victim. The society should stand with the victim. The society should feel the pain of the victim and only then it can be said that the crime has been committed against the society.
If I am a member of the society and my neighbour is killed or attacked or raped or subjected to any other crime and I don’t feel the pain of my neighbour then will it possible to say that the crime has been committed against the society?… Because the society is not concerned. Society has to show concern for the majesty of the law to prevail. The society has to feel the pain of the victim, the system has to feel the pain of the victim and only when the system will feel the pain of the victim then the concept of doing justice to the society will arrive. It is bad that the system addresses the victims as ‘helpless victims’.
They are ‘helpless’ because society is not helping them because we are not helping them or we are not helping ourselves.If the society starts thinking that the crime which has been committed against anybody is the crime against all the persons of the society who are coming to know of the crime then, in the real sense justice will prevail. The theoretical philosophies of treating the criminals with latitudes whatever may be the reasons are doing the worst thing to the system itself.
It has to be a well thought of process. If age of the victim is not a consideration then the age of the criminal cannot be a consideration. A person cannot take the benefit of his juvenility to commit serious crimes. The law as its stands today gives the leverage to the person who is above 16 years of age but less than 18 to go almost Scott free even after committing serious offences like murder, like rape, like dacoity, like Sedition, like waging war against the Govt. But the question is what is the justification? If a person can understand, what is good and what is bad why should immunity be granted to him or her?
The age is a criteria which should have some rationale with it. It is understandable that a person who is less than 14 years of age will not be in a position to understand the crime or the impact of the crime so give some benefit to him but when it comes to the persons who are above in the bracket of 14-16 years of age, even they understand to some extent the crime and in their cases it should be nature of the crime which should decide whether any relaxation to the culpability can be given to them or not like they cannot be given any relaxation in the cases of murders, rapes in cases of dacoities and in other cases of serious nature where the punishment is life imprisonment or death or may be even 10 years of imprisonment but where offences carrying lesser penalties, giving some relaxation to them is understandable. Instead of sending them to jail they can be sent to reform house. But there is absolutely no question of giving any benefit to the person who is above 16 years of age and then commits the crime and then the important consideration in this regard would be the age of the victim and the way the crime is committed. So in these situations it will be more important if even in the cases where the benefits of juvenility can be given in some classes of cases, the matter is considered by proper authority, before deciding in a particular case whether the benefits should be given or not despite the age of juvenile. Because that is the only way in which we can keep the victims perspective protected. If “Ravan” is to be punished the perspective of “Sita” has to be taken into consideration. The ‘victims’ which is ignored class in the justice dispensation system is now crying foul, is now raising voice that the time has come for its voice to be heard and which is the most important voice in any attempt to abrogate crime. Let any criminal not go Scott free and let every criminal feel the heat for the crime it has done but the same time let us give the satisfaction to the victim that he or she is not standing alone, society is standing with him or her and that the fight against the crime is not his or her individual fight but is a collective fight.
(The author is a Senior Advocate. )
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