Background
In an petition filed by Bharat Bajaj, a resident of Bilaspur, against the order passed by the Atrocity Court for DNA test.
During the hearing of the case, Justice Agarwal found that the name of the rape victim is mentioned in the police application and the court order.
The court observed-
“Criminal courts manning the offence of rape are not to mention the name of the victim in their order or judgment, but yet in several places of the impugned order which is in two pages, the name of the victim has been mentioned. Such a practice is deprecated. Similarly, the investigating officer during the course of investigation as well as in the application filed before the Court seeking DNA profiling has mentioned the name of the victim despite having been deprecated by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in the aforesaid judgments and not followed the procedure to be followed i.e. keeping the name of victim in sealed cover,”
Held
Justice Agarwal has said in his judgment that after the hearing in the rape case, the name of the victim will no longer be mentioned in the decision given by the court. For the rehabilitation of the victim, the name will remain in the government documents, but she is forbidden to make it public in any way.
Lawcutor 