Is offspring of rape entitled to legal rights on the rapist’s property? And if the victim is a young girl and the pregnancy is detected too late, what then happens to the minor mother and her child? How does one secure their future? These are questions that our legal system is sitting up and finally taking notice of.
For the first time in India’s legal history, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has appointed an amicus curiae or a panel of legal experts to advise it on how to rehabilitate a 13-year-old rape survivor and her unborn child. The court also discussed inheritance of the rapist’s property for the unborn child.
The Class 5 student from Barabanki was raped and impregnated in February this year. The pregnancy, however, was only diagnosed in July, after the minor complained of stomach ache, by which time it was too late to abort. With the survivor also standing the risk of being abandoned by parents due to social stigma, the court is now considering other rehabilitation options for mother and child.
It appointed a bench to examine the matter on September 23 and it reconvened on the matter yesterday. In a one-and-half hour address to the bench on Thursday, senior advocate J N Mathur pleaded that state may claim custody of the newborn after its birth under the Juvenile Justice Act because the minor mother would be unable to bring up the child and may give him or her away in adoption.
The girl’s father had spoken to the rapist’s family to get the two married, but the family declined citing caste differences. Keeping this in mind, the local Bar Association for Oudh has suggested an exemplary compensation for the minor girl.
Alongside that, the court is also considering endowment for the unborn child. “We want the child to get care, affection and security and the minor mother too to be compensated adequately, besides the criminal proceedings against the culprit,” the bench expressed, directing the hearing to continue on Friday.
The court’s decision to secure the future of an unborn child, born of a minor who is a victim of rape is probably the first of its kind in India. Legal experts told TOI while there are many Supreme Court rulings governing the rehabilitation of rape survivors, the unborn children of such survivors remains uncharted territory.
The legal team asked to assist the court in protecting the interests of the minor and her child are also faced with numerous unanswered questions; is monetary compensation to the survivor enough to secure her future? Since the survivor is a minor, and her parents abandon her, how will the monetary compensation, once accorded, be implemented? Can the minor survivor be expected to raise the child, once she is born? Can the minor exercise the right to give her consent to keep, or to give up her child for adoption? And, if so, does the consent of the minor, also the mother in this case, count?
But what really matters for now is that our courts are really thinking beyond the rigid framework of the law to truly help out the victims and the needy.
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