Its public prosecutors never once asked the judge to allow them to consult the victim whose future was being decided. Yet the Tamil Nadu state government has not bothered to contact her, forget the apology it should make for its shoddy treatment of the case. Vimla told The Indian Express, "One day I will tell my daughter that her father is a rapist." She told the AIDWA team that she would have been happy if the judgement had ensured that she got some help to educate her child, but as it stands, even the two lakh rupee fine levied on the rapist by the additional sessions court has not been paid.Īll this information is in the public domain. She has stated that she does not want any mediation. She has asked for assistance to challenge it. Vimla unequivocally rejects the judgment. A team of senior members of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), with whom I work, met Vimla in her village after the judgement, so that we could hear from her directly what she thought of the judgement and whether she required any assistance. If allowed to stand, it sets a dangerous precedent for the use of ADR to enable a criminal convicted rapist to escape punishment.īut first about the courageous young woman Vimla (name changed). The judgement is deeply flawed on all counts: legally, morally, ethically. The declared aim of the mediation is to arrange for the marriage of the rapist with the victim. The outrageous judgement of a single bench of the Madras High Court in granting bail to the convicted rapist of a 15-year-old girl and referring the matter to a "mediation centre" set up under the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Mechanism constitutes a new low in judicial pronouncements in cases of sexual assault.
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