'Swift justice is most important'

How effective do you think a law even a stringent law can be in curbing crimes against women On the law side I believe the situation is satisfactory following the implementation of the Verma Committee recommendations and the passing of new laws However laws by themselves cannot help in curbing crimes against women We have more than enough laws in the country Actress Sonam Kapoor participating in a protest against rape in Mumbai earlier this yearu00a0PicJay Munagekar Former Delhi University Vice Chancellor and legal luminary Upendra Baxi was once quoted as saying that we have more laws than the GDP of the country The most important thing in my view is swift justice Irsquoll explain what I mean When I was teaching criminal procedure at Delhi University I often presented the following choice for law students Situation 1 The accused is found guilty of rape and sentenced to jail for seven years under the old law The final verdict after all appeals etc is announced within six months from the date of the occurrence Situation 2 The accused is found guilty of rape and sentenced to jail for ten years or even life imprisonment under the provisions of the new law The verdict becomes final after a period of 20 years One of the frequent questions in the class was lsquoSir what is happening to the accused in the second scenario Is he in jail for all this while Or is he out on bailrsquou00a0The Supreme Court has made it clear that as far as undertrials are concerned the rule is bail not jail A man is innocent till proven guilty Of course this man is out on bail There may be some highprofile cases exceptions to the rule where bail is not given Once this question of fact was out of the way I have to say that 90 per cent of my students opted overwhelmingly in favour of the first option lsquoJustice delayed IS justice deniedrsquo We all do perceive the need for swift and fair verdicts I canrsquot help wondering how Nirbhaya herself would have decided had she been given those two choices She would have demanded the harshest punishment possible I do believe but given a choice between only two alternative scenarios she would have opted for swift justice with a lesser punishment rather than a delayed decision with a harsher sentence The harsher punishments hold little deterrence because of the delays Former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir had said in a letter to chief justices of high courts in the country that delay may be one of the factors contributing to the rise in the number of such cases inasmuch as on account of such delay deterrence pales into insignificance What do you feel is the key to end violence against women more laws stricter policing or education sensitisation and awareness We need all the things yoursquove mentioned On the law side I believe we are now okay There was the need to create new offences which following the Nirbhaya case has now been done For example stalking should have been introduced as an offence much earlier The legislatorsrsquo attention should have been drawn to this gap in the law as far back as 1996 when the Priyadarshini Mattoo case made daily headlines and there was a call for change Had stalking existed as a separate offence at the time it is quite possible that the rape and subsequent murder of the young law student may have been prevented The offences of stalking and acid attacks are also closely connected There have been scores of acid attacks that have followed the same pattern The boy has stalked the girl made a proposal and then when that is turned down he has thrown acid Voyeurism and disrobing a woman in public are also examples of new offences that should have been created much earlier So itrsquos good we have new laws And we need those other things that you mention better policing education sensitisation and so on But if you ask me what is the key it has to be the need for speedy justice Do you feel that the institutionalisation of domestic violence against women in India to the point that it is not seen as abnormal contributes to or encourages violence against women in the public sphere You are right There is a clear connection between the two issues A man who beats up his wife and gets away with it either because she doesnrsquot complain or because of police inaction such a man will feel emboldened to think that he can get away with assaulting a woman outside the home as well This affects the young boys in the family also There may be individual variations but taken as a whole male children who grow up in families where they see their father beating up their mother are more likely I should think to inflict violence on their own partners when they grow up and get married as compared with say children who see their father treating their mother with respect and kindness Irsquom speaking only in general terms Of course there may be cases where a male child who is a witness to his father being abusive to his mother may actually grow up with a hatred of male violence and become a campaigner for womenrsquos rights but this I think would be the relatively rarer case Reform not revenge u00a0this was the key phrase in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case Do you think reform can replace revenge Let me put your question a bit differently Unless there is reform there will be more and more revenge When people begin to lose faith in the ability of the courts to render them justice they will resort to revenge to assuage their pain Revenge or vigilante justice represents a breakdown in the rule of law I believe that reform is coming and that it is the Nirbhaya case that has pressed the trigger of lsquochangersquo If you will allow me to quote from the epilogue to my book which addresses this issue of reform As this book argues we need to overhaul reform enormously expand and modernize our national judiciary to give teeth to all those new laws that have been introduced and all our other laws as well and once that process begins those reforms can be called lsquoThe Nirbhaya Reformsrsquo which will then truly deserve her name Assaults are getting more brutal disputes even between teenagers and children end in violence Rape almost inevitably means grievous assault and injury to the victim As an observer of society what do you think is the reason for the growing anger that one sees practically everywhere I sometimes see children getting angry most of the time it is when they donrsquot get something they want And the same is true for teenagers and adults We live in a world of rising expectations It is natural for the younger generation to have more demands However a part of growing up means coming to terms with your desires to start to understand that you may have to struggle long and hard to reach your goals This understanding this maturity is harder to come by these days because of another reason People are prepared to work long and hard as long as they see that others have to do this as well But if they see that others are born with a silver spoon others create shortcuts to wealth through corruption if they are witness to ostentation and obscene displays of wealth and if they see that this world is not only not fair it treats people differently for no valid reason it is then that frustration and rage begins to accumulate As a famous judge once said nothing rankles more in the human heart than a sense of injustice Even the child will be angry because he is not getting what he wants but he will explode with rage if he sees a similarly placed child receiving preferential treatment We have to restore equity and a sense of fair play in our society and this is not unconnected with proper governance and a better swifter justice delivery mechanism