Weapon against assault

There is a single important reason why the country sat up and took notice of the conviction and sentencing of Mohanty, accused of rape, by a Jaipur court this week.

There is a single important reason why the country sat up and took notice of the conviction and sentencing of B.H. Mohanty, accused of rape, by a Jaipur fast-track court this week. The conviction took place within less than a month of the crime itself. Last year, in September, in another case of a German tourist’s rape, it took all of 16 days for the police to complete investigations and a Jodhpur fast-track court to deliver its verdict. Recently, there have been demands to make the law on rape much more comprehensive in order to procure more and faster convictions. But the exemplary speed with which the Rajasthan police and courts concluded the above proceedings is proof that even existing procedures and laws can be adequate as long as there is a certain will on the part of the investigating and prosecuting agencies to deliver justice. Only the speedy disposal of such cases can act as a deterrent.

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But there’s another reason why the Jaipur court should be seen as having delivered a landmark judgment. There’s been an attempt here to define what constitutes consent. Usually, in cases where the victim, in this case a German research scholar, is friendly with the rapist, there’s been a tendency to presume that the victim may have invited the act. Many a time, there is also an attempt — permissible under the Evidence Act — to bring evidence about her past sexual history, character or conduct in order to prove that she was of a ‘general immoral character’, and to thereby establish consent. In fact, the 172nd Law Commission report on the review of rape laws has strongly disapproved of this tendency among trial courts to cast aspersions on the victim’s character and has recommended the deletion of this provision.