Role of Police and Prosecution in Eliminating False Rape Cases: Applying the British No-Crime Label in Indian Criminal Justice Administration

Abstract

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 brought about robust changes in the country’s rape laws but not without its concomitant worries. With retribution and deterrence as its holy grail, the landmark legislation emphasised on police sensitisation in rape cases and improving police responses to rape complaints by women. However, this overhaul has led to a surge in filing of rape cases and has proved to be a poisoned chalice for the criminal justice system with numerous instances of malicious filing of false rape cases. When police officers come across false rape allegations, they are left with no discourse as they are bound by the mandate of the new law that gives blanket credibility to the victim’s testimony. Such phenomenon has drastically changed the approach of police officers towards rape cases, especially when the offender is an acquaintance of the victim, resulting into spurious investigations. This paper examines the role of police along with the prosecution in eliminating false rape cases through a legitimate and rigorous exercise of fact-finding and drawing a concurrent reasonable conclusion all the while balancing the rights of the accused and justice to victims. Investigation must serve as a sieve to limit the trial of cases that would put the accused to great oppression and prejudice without sufficient grounds. Such can be achieved by applying the Britain-origin ‘no-crime’ label on reports that are found to be ‘untrue’ rather than to cases where the complainant withdrew or there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. The paper suggests that the prosecutor and the investigating agency must actively take part in finding out the truth, which is the overarching aim of every criminal justice system.