If some judges would much rather be ignorant of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, they are not likely to have heard of any of the other conventions either. In which case they would be loathe to allow any point on it, no matter how valid it may be to a case in court of Child Sexual Abuse.

Lawyers, too, can be equally ignorant of truly fine rulings by learned judges in connection with cases of Child Sexual Abuse.

There is, for instance, a ruling which very clearly opines that if a child maintains it has been sexually abused, corroboration to this effect need not be sourced, the case can proceed beyond looking for technicalities. This is the case of 1983, Bharwada Bhogibhai Hirjibhai versus the state of Gujarat. He had sexually abused his little daughter’s child-friend who had come to their home to play.

The judge’s opinion:

‘In the Indian setting refusal to act on the testimony of a victim of sexual assault in the absence of corroboration is adding insult to injury. Why should the evidence of the girl or the woman who complains of rape or sexual molestation be viewed with the aid of spectacles fitted with lenses tinged with doubt, disbelief or suspicion? To do so is to justify the charge of male chauvinism in a male dominated society. On principle, the evidence of a victim of sexual assault stands on par with the evidence of an injured witness.’

And there is this absolute path-breaker by the Supreme Court which ruled in March 2000, that non-injury to the rape victim does not signify her, or his, consent. That is, the absence of injuries on the body of a rape victim is not necessarily an evidence of consent or even of the falsity of the allegation. The Supreme Court set aside a Rajasthan High Court judgement acquitting a rape accused on the ground that the absence of injuries on the victim was a material fact not excluding the possibility of her having been a consenting adult. Said Justices R.C. Lahoti and S. N. Variava, ‘The High Court has committed a clean error of law. Courts have to display a greater sense of responsibility and be more sensitive while dealing with charges of sexual assault on women.’

The case was about a man who had raped a fifteen-year-old girl. The Sessions Court heard the testimony of this girl and her father, and corroborated it with the medical evidence. The accused went in appeal to the Rajasthan High Court which reversed the Session Court’s sentence of seven years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2,000. The Rajasthan High Court said that the lodging of the first information report was delayed and the person to whom the girl narrated her story was not examined by the prosecution. The girl’s father approached the Supreme Court for justice; it was granted.

Justices Variava and Lahoti observed, ‘An unmerited acquittal encourages wolves in the society being on prowl for easy prey, more so when the victims of crime are helpless females. It is the spurt in the number of unmerited acquittals recorded by criminal courts which gives rise to the demand for death sentences to rapists.’ The judges added, ‘If the prosecution has succeeded in making out a convincing case for recording a finding as to the accused being guilty, the court should not lean in favour of the acquittal by giving weight to irrelevant or insignificant circumstances.’ The judges said the delay in registering the first information report had been satisfactorily explained and ‘mere delay is no ground by itself for throwing the entire prosecution case overboard’. Justices Variava and Lahoti also pointed out that it would have been preferable if the woman before whom the child narrated her story could be examined but no dent was caused in the prosecution’s case by her non-examination.