The High Court on Wednesday asked the government to explain in a week why a scheme for compensating rape victims and their rehabilitations would not be made for the protection of their lives.
The court also asked the government to explain why an expert committee would not be constituted to assess the applicability and viability of the ‘schedule for an interim compensation’ for the rape victims.
The court issued the ruling after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed in January by Children’s Charity Bangladesh Foundation’s chairman Abdul Halim.
The court in the ruling also asked the government to explain why its inaction and failure in saving the lives of rape victims by taking appropriate and effective steps for their rehabilitation and compensation would not be declared illegal.
The secretaries of the ministries of home, women and children affairs, health and finance, and the inspector general of the police are among the 15 respondents.
Petitioner Abdul Halim told the court that every victim of rape and the family of any deceased victim are legally entitled to receive compensation through the ‘proposed schedule’ as only 3 per cent rape cases could be proved by the courts.
Halim said that an unproven rape allegation not mean that the rape incident did not occur.
He said that the government is required to pay the compensation to the rape victims as it is the state’s failure to probe the rape cases which often leads to the lower conviction rate in such cases.
Halim made an appeal for a scheme in Bangladesh fashioned after the one the Indian Supreme Court introduced in 2018 titled ‘Scheme for Women Victims or Survivors of Sexual Assault or other Crimes’.
