What 'Settlement' Can There Ever Be In Rape Cases?
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-05-29 08:17:40
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
How could
the parents and families of rape survivors be so heartless as to even think of
coming to a 'settlement' with the perpetrator and/or his family? And what 'settlement' can ever be done? That it leads to even graver consequences was proved when a 14-year-old
rape victim in Bareilly hanged herself in another room after she heard that her
family was negotiating a 'settlement' with the family of the perpetrator.
Can there
ever be a 'settlement' in a criminal case, and that too of rape? Will families
ever understand what a girl - a 14-year-old at that - has gone through when she
was raped? Can they ever understand her agony, her fear, her scars and the
mental trauma she is going through? If they did, they would never even talk to
the perpetrator's family, let alone negotiate a 'settlement'.
Imagine the
helplessness the girl must have felt when she heard what was going on in the
other room. To listen to her parents and other members of her family talk to the
perpetrator and his family and negotiate 'terms of settlement' through which
they would withdraw the criminal case against him would have felt as if her
family was abandoning her and cared nothing about her pain.
There can
be no 'settlement' in such cases. If rape has taken place, the perpetrator
needs to be punished as per law. That would deter others from committing the
crime. The rich will always commit the offence and buy their way out of trouble
if 'settlements' are allowed in such cases. That would defeat the purpose of
the law and justice will not be done to the survivor. It will also amount to
putting a price on the crime. The role of the police in acting as facilitators
of such 'settlements' must also be probed.
