Victimological Orientation of Rape Laws: A Breakdown in Pursuit of a Legal Dictum

Abstract

A rapist not only violates the victim’s privacy and personal integrity, but also causes serious physical and psychological damage. A rapist not only violates the victim’s privacy and personal integrity, but also causes serious physical and psychological damage. The law must take a fresh look at itself and take positive steps to make it more difficult for an accused to get judicial reprieve. Statistics from 2000 showed that on average a woman is raped every hour in India. As observed by Justice Arjit Pasayat: While a murderer destroys the physical frame of the victim, a rapist degrades and defiles the soul of a helpless female. Sexual harassment is nothing less than the showcasing of male dominance. In Bodhisattwa Gautam v. Subhra Chakraborty the Supreme Court said that “rape is a crime against basic human rights and a violation of the victim’s” most cherished of fundamental rights, namely, the right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution. Rape as defined in Section 375 of Indian Penal Code says Rape means an unlawful intercourse done by a man with a woman without her valid consent.