Long Wait for Justice as Pendencies in Rape Cases Mount

Why in news?

NCRB data show rape case pendency mounting; under 2% convicted within the trial year.

UPSC Relevance

Mains GS-I: Role of women; social empowerment; salient features of Indian society (patriarchy, caste).

Mains GS-II: Mechanisms, laws and institutions for protection of vulnerable sections; judiciary; police and criminal justice reforms.

GS-IV / Essay: Gender justice, empathy, probity in policing; “Laws alone cannot change society.”

What does the data tell? 

• A recent gang rape of a minor in south-east Delhi, and videos of harassment of girls in Bihar, the rape case in a LPU Punjab, have again raised concerns about women’s safety in public spaces and the need for quick and strict action.
• Since the 2012 Nirbhaya case, laws have become tougher and set timelines for disposing of rape cases. Yet NCRB data show that India is far from delivering justice on time. (The analysis excludes POCSO cases, which NCRB reports separately.)
• The number of new cases has stayed roughly steady — from 33,356 in 2018 to 29,536 in 2024, or about 80 cases a day. But pendency has kept growing, because courts dispose of fewer cases than enter the system each year.
• The leak begins at the police stage. In 2024, about 40,000 cases were under investigation (new cases plus those carried over). Only about 25,000 (63%) were chargesheeted; the rest stayed pending or were closed as “false”, “mistake of fact” or “untraced”.
• Of the 20,587 cases the courts did finish, about 68% ended in acquittal, 8% in discharge and only 24% in conviction — confirming a conviction rate below 30%.
• Speed is the sharpest failure. Only 421 cases sent to trial in 2024 ended in conviction the same year — about 2% of that year’s trials, despite legal deadlines.
• The author concludes that legal changes alone have not worked and that further measures are needed to make justice timely.

The legal framework today

• Definition and punishment: the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, in force since 1 July 2024, defines rape in Section 63 and punishes it in Section 64 with at least 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment.
  • Section 65 provides harsher terms for rape of girls under 16 and under 12 (including death for the latter).
  • Section 70 deals with gang rape, with life or death for gang rape of a girl under 18.
• Timelines: under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023,
  • police must complete rape investigation within two months (Section 193), 
  • and the trial should end within two months of the chargesheet (Section 346). 
  • The victim’s medical examination must happen within 24 hours (Section 184). 
  • The data show these deadlines are routinely missed.
• Victim protection: disclosing a rape survivor’s identity is punishable (BNS Section 72); trials are held in camera; and the Supreme Court has banned the “two-finger test” (Lillu v. State of Haryana, 2013; reaffirmed in 2022).
• Marital rape: BNS retains the exception for a man and his wife aged 18 or above (after Independent Thought v. Union of India, 2017, raised the age from 15). Its constitutional validity is pending before the Supreme Court.

How the law evolved — each reform followed public outrage

• The Mathura custodial rape case (Tukaram v. State of Maharashtra, 1979) led to the 1983 amendment, which recognised custodial rape and shifted the burden of proof on consent in certain cases.
• The Bhanwari Devi case led to Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997), the basis for the POSH Act, 2013.
• The 2012 Delhi gang rape led to the Justice J.S. Verma Committee, which reported in 29 days, and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, which widened the definition of rape and added offences such as stalking and voyeurism. The Nirbhaya Fund followed.
• The Kathua and Unnao cases led to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018, adding the death penalty for rape of a girl under 12. 
• The 2024 RG Kar case in Kolkata led to a Supreme Court National Task Force on the safety of medical professionals.

Where the justice chain breaks

• Reporting: NFHS-5 found that a large majority of women who faced physical or sexual violence never told anyone, and only about 14% sought help. So NCRB numbers capture only a fraction of real incidents.
• Investigation: women make up only about 12% of police personnel, forensic labs have long DNA backlogs, and one-third of cases never reach the chargesheet stage in a given year.
• Prosecution and trial: India has about 21 judges per million people, against the Law Commission’s 1987 recommendation of 50. Adjournments, overworked prosecutors and victims or witnesses turning hostile under pressure drive the 68% acquittal share. The Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 (Mahender Chawla v. Union of India) is weakly implemented.
• Fast-track courts: the Fast Track Special Courts scheme (2019) set up over 700 courts, many exclusively for POCSO, but they share the same shortages of judges, prosecutors and forensic support.

Deeper roots: why sexual violence persists

Historical factors

• Patriarchy as an old institution: Gerda Lerner (The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986) traced how control over women’s bodies and sexuality became central to property and lineage. Violence became a means of enforcing that control.
• Caste and control of sexuality: Uma Chakravarti’s idea of “Brahmanical patriarchy” explains how caste purity was maintained by controlling women’s sexuality. This is why Dalit and Adivasi women face violence meant to humiliate whole communities, as in Khairlanji (2006) and Hathras (2020).
• Colonial law: the Indian Penal Code of 1860 framed rape as an offence against a woman’s “modesty” and treated women’s bodies through a lens of honour, not autonomy. Some of this thinking survived long after independence.
• Violence in conflict: Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence documents mass sexual violence during Partition, showing how women’s bodies became sites of communal revenge — a pattern repeated in later riots and conflicts.

Societal and cultural factors

• Honour and shame: the idea that a woman carries family honour shifts stigma from the offender to the survivor. Families often discourage reporting, and survivors face social boycott.
• Intersectionality: Kimberlé Crenshaw’s idea explains how caste, class, religion and disability combine with gender, so the poorest and most marginalised women face the highest risk and the weakest access to justice.
• Rape myths and victim-blaming: Martha Burt (1980) described “rape myth acceptance” — beliefs that women provoke assault through clothing or behaviour. Such beliefs appear in police stations and even courts, which is why the Supreme Court issued a Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes (2023) and, in Aparna Bhat v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2021), barred stereotyped bail conditions.
• Son preference and skewed sex ratios: a deficit of women in some regions creates “surplus” young men with weak marriage prospects. Hudson and den Boer (Bare Branches, 2004) link such imbalances to higher violence.
• Control of mobility: girls’ movement is restricted “for safety”, which keeps public spaces male-dominated and makes women more visible targets when they do enter them. Shilpa Phadke’s Why Loiter? (2011) argues that women’s right to public space, not restriction, is the answer.

Political factors

• Weak representation: women’s low presence in legislatures, police and the higher judiciary means their concerns shape institutions less. The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (2023) will reserve one-third of legislative seats, but only after delimitation.
• Impunity for the powerful: when accused persons have political or social power, cases stall and victims face pressure, as in the Unnao case (2017), where a sitting MLA was later convicted.
• Violence in conflict zones: sexual violence has been used in communal and ethnic conflict, as seen in Muzaffarnagar (2013) and Manipur (2023). The Verma Committee recommended reviewing the sanction requirement under AFSPA for sexual offences by security personnel. 

Economic factors

• Economic dependence: women with no independent income find it harder to report or leave an abusive setting. Female labour force participation, though rising, remains low by global standards.
• Unsafe work and cities: informal work, poorly lit streets, unsafe public transport and long commutes expose women to risk, especially migrants and night-shift workers.
• Frustrated young men: unemployment and long waits for stable jobs (Craig Jeffrey’s study of “timepass” among young men) can feed aggressive masculinity, though unemployment alone does not cause violence. Eg. Manosphere on social media promoting toxic masculinity.
• Cost of justice: lawyers, repeated court visits and lost wages make long trials unaffordable for poor families, pushing them to compromise or turn hostile.

Psychological factors

• Power, not desire: Susan Brownmiller (Against Our Will, 1975) and A. Nicholas Groth (Men Who Rape, 1979) showed that rape is mainly about power, control and anger, not sexual need. This is why most rapes are by known persons — over 90% of accused in NCRB data are known to the survivor.
• Dehumanisation and group behaviour: in gang crimes, group pressure and shared responsibility weaken individual restraint.
• Trauma and silence: survivors often face trauma, fear and self-blame. A slow, hostile system causes “secondary victimisation”, which pushes many to withdraw from cases — feeding the acquittal figures.

The social justice and governance lens

• Social justice view: sexual violence is a denial of the right to life with dignity (Article 21), equality (Articles 14 and 15) and, for SC/ST women, a form of caste oppression recognised by the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Justice here means changing power relations, not just punishing individuals.
• Governance view: the state’s duty is to prevent, investigate, prosecute and support. The data show failure at each stage: low reporting, weak investigation, slow trials and poor victim support. Fixing one stage without the others just moves the backlog.

The core debate: harsher laws or a stronger system?

The case for tougher laws and severe punishment

• Deterrence: severe penalties, including death for rape of children, signal that society will not tolerate such crimes and may deter some offenders.
• Public trust: strong laws respond to public anger and show the state takes women’s safety seriously.
• Legal clarity: the 2013 amendment widened the definition of rape and recognised new offences such as stalking, closing real gaps in the law.
• Examples: the 2018 amendment; state laws such as Maharashtra’s Shakti Act (2020) and West Bengal’s Aparajita Bill (2024), which proposed the death penalty; and the execution of the four Nirbhaya convicts in 2020 after the Supreme Court upheld their sentences (Mukesh v. State, 2017).

The case for certainty and system reform

• Certainty deters more than severity: The certainty of punishment matters more than its harshness. With convictions in under 30% of decided cases and only 2% within a year, the real message offenders receive is impunity.
• Harsh penalties can backfire: the Verma Committee rejected the death penalty for rape, calling it a regressive step. Since most offenders are known to the survivor — often family — severe penalties can increase pressure not to report, and may give offenders a motive to kill the victim.
• Laws without capacity: deadlines in BNSS mean little when there are too few judges, prosecutors, forensic labs and trained women officers.
• Examples: the persistent 2% same-year conviction rate despite the 2018 death-penalty amendment; fast-track courts clogged by the same shortages; and the success of victim-centred models such as One Stop Centres (Sakhi, 2015) where they are properly staffed.

Way Ahead

• Capacity: filling judicial vacancies, more prosecutors, and forensic labs with time-bound DNA reporting.
• Police reform: implementing Prakash Singh v. Union of India (2006) directions, more women in police, and gender-sensitive investigation.
• Victim support: witness protection, legal aid, compensation under victim compensation schemes, and psychological support to prevent hostile turns.
• Social change: comprehensive sexuality and gender education in schools, community campaigns, and changing how media portray women.
• Data: NCRB counts only the most serious offence in each FIR (the “principal offence rule”), so better, victim-survey-based data are needed to track real incidence.

Strong laws are necessary but not sufficient. The evidence favours making punishment certain and swift rather than only more severe, while tackling the social roots that make violence possible and silence likely. Prevention in society, capacity in institutions and dignity for survivors must move together.

Mains Practice Question

Despite stricter laws since 2013, justice in rape cases remains slow and uncertain. Analyse the social and institutional causes of sexual violence against women in India and suggest a comprehensive response. (250 words, 15 marks)