​Marked for life: On acid attack survivors

Shocked that an acid attack victim had not got closure 16 years after the crime was committed, the Supreme Court of India made a slew of oral observations early this week calling the slow pace a “mockery of the system”. The Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice Surya Kant, said acid attackers must not be shown any sympathy by courts, and called for the “entire system” to respond against them. Shaheen Malik was 26 and was studying for an MBA degree when she was attacked outside her office in Haryana in 2009. Till 2013, “nothing happened” in her case, she told the CJI. The case was finally transferred to Rohini court in Delhi from Haryana, where the trial is pending and “final arguments” are on. Ms. Malik has undergone reconstructive surgeries, and in 2021, she set up Brave Souls, an NGO which offers medical and legal support to acid attack survivors. In fact, she was knocking at the Court’s door with a PIL seeking formal recognition of survivors as persons with specified disabilities under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. She was bringing the Court’s notice to those acid attack victims who had been forcibly fed acid and were not marked for life like others who had acid thrown at them but nevertheless lived with terrible suffering.

The CJI asked the Centre to consider bringing an ordinance. Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said no respondent could oppose the cause of the petitioners. Perpetrators of acid attacks who leave victims, mostly women and minors, scarred inside and outside for the rest of their lives “must meet with the same ruthlessness as they showed their victims”, he said. The CJI ordered the Registrar-General of the High Courts to provide the number and details of pending trials in acid attack cases; he also proposed setting up of special courts to exclusively conduct acid attack cases on a day-to-day basis. In the past, in Laxmi vs Union Of India and Ors., the Court had directed the government to ensure that acid attack victims got proper treatment, aftercare and rehabilitation, also asking it to look into the banning of sale of acid across the counter. Section 124 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita deals with acid attacks and the punishment to be meted out, but reality paints a grim picture, with trials being long-drawn and conviction rates low. According to latest National Crime Records Bureau data, there were 207 incidents of acid attacks across the country in 2023, with West Bengal ignominiously topping the list with 57 cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh (31). Victims of acid attacks, one of the worst forms of gender violence imaginable, deserve a lot better.