CERTIFICATE COURSE ON LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR THE

PROTECTION OF WOMEN

Failure of Implementation

Effectiveness Of Laws

Almost every Indian Citizen today is thorough with the Fact that India provides for „n‟
number of Laws when it comes to outweighing the Crimes Against Women. However, the
Nation still witnesses an increase and that to an exponential increase to quote, in the
happening and reporting, or in other words the committing of these Crimes.

An impending question thus arises, as to “WHY” is this Paradox sustaining and living in
the Nation?

Generality tells us that higher the number of laws, more will be the Punishments and more
the number or intensity of Punishments, lesser will be the Crime Rate. Though, dwelling a
little deeper into the mentioned Relation of Proportionality, one may easily figure out that the
first proportion i.e. more laws more punishments fits well into the scenario of India, but the

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second proportion turns out to be direct rather than an inverse one, i.e. more are the
punishments, more are the crimes reported. More punishment, less crime, the theory seems to
fade.

Is More Law The Answer?

As presented in the above section of the paper, it is easily verifiable and accessible that India
already has ample of laws to tackle the Issues of Crimes against Women in greatest possible
Accuracy and sophisticated approach, looking into the grievous nature of such Crimes.

The Country contains various Statutory Acts, Dowry Prohibition Act, Sexual Harassment of
women at workplace Prohibition Act, etc. and various others as learnt in the previous
modules. Other than these acts, the Indian Penal Code is also equipped with many such
Sections that provide for stringent punishments for the wrongdoers against women as we
have seen in the Second Module.

It shall further be noted that India contains laws almost at every aspect and field where a
woman can be a subject to injustice except Marital Rape. This undoubtedly points out that

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other than an enactment of law penalizing Marital Rape, the Nation may not need new laws
on this Issue.

However the failure of the Laws, despite being in such large numbers, to protect India from
being among of the top countries in non safety of women, can be attributed to the poor
implementation of the Existing Laws, Rather than the lack of Laws.

More Implementation Of The Laws: The Key Solution

When it comes to India, about the effective execution of the laws that prevent crimes against
women, it can be seen that such a large number of laws are too unable to curb the rate of such
crimes. New Delhi, the National Capital encounters with more than 180 rape cases per
month. The question hence arises that what can be a practical approach to deal with such

heinous crimes and put them down in numbers.

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Talking about India implies we are talking about a Nation which already deals with the
burden of a huge pendency of cases, corruption, a prejudiced mindset towards women, a
judgmental approach in dealing with complaints by women, a marginally low conviction rate
of such crimes, various safeguards in treating the accused and the like.

Has one ever thought that why don‟t every rape committed against a girl, ends up in
committing of another offense of Murder? If India has such high number of laws then the
accused being afraid of them would end up murdering the victim? But this does not happen in
majority of the cases. A woman is raped and left onto the streets naked, without any fear
because somewhere in the conscience even the accuse knows that he might be saved either by
bribing the officials, or by using his power or Position, and if not, the Proceedings would take
so long that he might have completed the term of his Natural Life by then, or he might be
acquitted on the grounds of “Proving Beyond Reasonable Doubt”. Disgraceful, but a true
practice in India.

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Looking at the official aspect, we also come up with cases like the one that happened recently
in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh where a girl was raped continuously for three hours, by a gang of
eve teasers, under a bridge which was located in the Heart of the City. There were two
aspects of this case- first which publishes the social reality and growing insensitivity of the
people towards such crimes. Is it even practical or possible that a girl being raped near the
road located in the heart of the city, goes unnoticed by every passersby? Or did they choose
to ignore the crime that was taking place? It is obvious that the second one prevailed. The
Second truth reflecting attitude of the bureaucrats comes into picture by the insensitive and
illegitimate remark (We see such story and moviemaking everyday) made by the police
official at the time when the victim, who was already suffering from immeasurable pain and
agony, came with her father to register complaints against the wrongdoers.

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What do these faces tell us? The one that comprises of the Population and the other that
comprises of the controller of such population, in this case did nothing but re assured the
Nation that ours is a society which is radically Patriarchal, where a woman is bound to suffer
even for her basic needs and rights, and where we follow an approach of judging the victims
not the accused. No matter what the government did afterwards, the root problem lied in the
lower social and practical level, which is akin to the various laws made but problem actually
lying at the roots.

The other setback that the Nation Faces is the strict interpretation of laws even in the cases
which are of heinous nature. Few such case including that of The State v. Raju Thapa, where
the accused teacher who was charged with the offence of Raping his Minor Student was
acquitted on grounds of not proved „beyond reasonable doubt‟ despite of the presence of clear
video tapes, the Case of Aruna Shanbaug, where the victim of rape, after fighting for 13 long
years with comma, succumbed to injuries without the accused being punished and the
infamous Nirbhaya Case where she died and the Juvenile who was the most monstrous actor
of the case is a cook today, speak volumes about the present flaws in implementation of such
laws, which completely follow a strict procedure neutralizing the gravity of offences.

Summing Up
Being a patriarchal society India faces a huge biasness against women and consider them to
be an object of interest, which results in drastic and horrifying crimes against them. Despite
of the various laws present to tackle the issue, a prejudiced mindset and poor implementation
turn out to be obstacles in receiving Justice. There lies various measures to achieve the end
but that can only be done by united efforts of Society, Bureaucrats, Judiciary and most of all
the Mindset of all of them taken together. It must be ensured that we live in a country where a
woman can walk without fear at roads, where she can live in harmony with her family and
where her tears are not subdued.

Concluding with the words present in Article 21 of the nation‟s Constitution,

“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to
procedure established by law.”

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With this we come to an end to our Course. Hope it was an enriching experience for all
of you. We thoroughly enjoyed the journey with you all and hope you all did the same
too. We shall roll out the assignments within a couple of days so that you all get ample
time to complete them.

Thank you.

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