Trauma Survivors Meet the Law: Explorations in India

Evolving jurisprudence increasingly tries to take on board more and more areas of discrimination and disability in the quest for justice. The sensitizations to caste, gender, class and sexual orientation are illustrations of the opening up of the legal system to deep-rooted structural inequalities. There is a growing recognition that treating persons unequally or differently situated as equals is not equality. The arena of the legal system meeting trauma survivor is one which cries for fresh insights and reform. Often, it is the victim-survivor of the trauma who is worse off after an interaction with the justice system. The harsh dynamics of repeated depositions and cross examinations end up showing the victim-survivor as inconsistent, contradictory and lacking credibility.

In a number of cases, rather than taking on board the vulnerabilities and pressures working on the victim-survivor, the system may end up further victimizing the victim-survivor. In the worst case scenario the trauma survivor who has suffered violence or been witness to brutal killing and rape is shown to have lied on oath leading to prosecution and imprisonment for perjury. For example, the Best Bakery case pertains to the killing of 14 persons, 11 Muslims including family members of the Sheikh family which ran the bakery and three Hindu employees on March 1, 2002 during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. Zaheera Sheikh, a 19-year-old woman whose family members were killed filed the criminal complaint and was a crucial witness in the case. A series of flip-flops by Zaheera Sheikh followed and in 2006 the Supreme Court of India sentenced her to one year's imprisonment and Rs. 50,000 fine for committing perjury. Similarly, testimonies of widows whose husbands were killed in the Sikh killings in 1984, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, suffered from long delays and inconsistencies, leading to closure reports against prominent Congress leaders who went scot-free.

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