A Delhi district judge has shown sensitivity that needs to be emulated while handling rape cases

A district judge of Delhi, Dharmesh Sharma, may just have shown how the criminal justice system in India should handle sexual assault cases. The judge heard the deposition of the victim, a minor girl, and deciding that her testimony was reliable, convicted the accused. The defendant’s counsel claimed inconsistencies in the testimony. However, the judge was not convinced. He said the rape survivor did not depose in a “parrot-like manner”. He found nothing to suggest she was “tutored”. Judge Sharma made a critical observation: The testimony is not to be appreciated from an adult’s point of view but “from the mindset of a girl”. This attitude makes all the difference to rape cases as they pass through the justice system, right from the complaint at the police station to the court trial. What happens most of the time is that insensitivity or indifference destroys the confidence of the survivor who is willing to face her assaulter in court. The kind of questioning she faces in the police station, at the hospital, and in court from defence counsels only re-traumatises them or even harms them. A sexual assault is traumatic and trauma has a neuro-biological impact on the victim. It affects their brains and nervous systems.

Any new trauma, as evidenced by insensitive questioning, can trigger a neuro-biological impact and that can mentally harm the victim in the long term. The parties to criminal justice system should have a basic understanding of the effects and impact of trauma on rape victims. That can help them receive evidence from the victims fairly and objectively. Judge Sharma was referring to this realisation. The other issue, which comes out during the questioning of the victim, relates to “rape myths” — certain stereotypes associated with the victims. There are mistaken assumptions as to why they reported the crime late or did not try to defend themselves. They are portrayed as “easygoing” and “promiscuous” to destroy their credibility. There is little understanding of how rape victims behave or react when recalling the experience. These “gaps” in knowledge can hurt the cases because, in a majority of them, the primary or only source of evidence is the victim’s testimony. Judge Sharma’s sensitive approach underlines the urgent need for criminal justice professionals, including judges, to get educated about the

neuro-biology of trauma and social contexts of victim responses.