Article
Institutional Design and Access Barriers in India’s Victim Compensation Framework for Rural Communities
The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 provides a statutory right to payment for victims and their dependants of crime, under Section 396 of the Act. The scheme is managed by the District Legal Services Authorities under the State Victim Compensation Schemes along with the model scheme framed by the National Legal Services Authority. However, from an empirical perspective, compensation expenditure benefits are distributed unevenly across jurisdictions, in favour of victims in metropolitan and district-headquarter jurisdictions, and to the detriment of victims in rural and remote jurisdictions. This article examines the institutional and geographical aspects of the gap. It maintains that the reliance on the pathway activated by the court (under Section 396(2) of the scheme) and the residual jurisdiction of the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) under Section 396(4) of the scheme, combined with the geography of rural policing, location of Sessions and Special Courts, and the extent to which the legal aid infrastructure can reach rural areas, creates a unique access deficit in rural areas. The article suggests four reforms at the rural interface based on the doctrine of the statute, the National Legal Services Authority’s Compensation Scheme for Women Victims/Survivors of Sexual Assault and Other Crimes 2018 and the Supreme Court’s observation in Nipun Saxena v Union of India namely: (i) an interim compensation pathway that does not require a court trigger, (ii) mobile compensation clinics at block and panchayat level, (iii) state-owned digital application infrastructure with assisted intake, and (iv) accreditation of para-legal volunteers as first responders. The changes aim to shift the tangible advantages of the scheme in favour of the beneficiaries it was supposed to benefit in practice — the rural and remote who were its primary target.