After actor-producer Vijay Babu was accused of sexual abuse over a period of a month by a young actor in the Malayalam film industry, he named her in a Facebook live video on April 28, even though it is against the law. His argument: it wasn’t fair that his name was out in the media when hers was not, even though it is known that the impact of sexual violence and identifying the survivor is much harsher for her than it is for the perpetrator. Many comments on his post, as well as social media reactions that were supportive of Vijay Babu in the following days followed a similar line of argument. They also claimed – as a section of people often do whenever a woman discloses sexual violence – that she could be lying, and that women tend to file 'false cases'.
However, the data tells a different story, even if it lacks nuance. According to the figures from National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Crime in India report 2020, less than 8% of all cases under investigation for rape were found to be 'false'. Other categories under which cases are logged under are 'cases ended as final report (FR) non-cognizable', 'cases ended as mistake of fact or of law or of civil dispute', 'cases true but insufficient evidence or untraced or no clue', and 'cases abated during investigation'. Similarly, only 10% of the cases filed under 'assault on women with the intent to outrage her modesty' come under the above four categories.
Source: NCRB Crime in India (2020)
Even among the so-called 'false' cases, there is a lot that the data does not say, including the factors that may lead sexual violence survivors to withdraw their complaints, turn hostile during investigation or trial, or settle outside court. However, that does not mean that the violence did not happen. In many cases, the case may fall through because the rape case has been filed by disapproving parents of an eloped couple.
Advocate Vrinda Grover has been representing seven women who were gangraped in the Muzzafarnagar violence in 2013. The chargesheets were filed, and initially, they even got favourable outcomes from the courts. However, the recording of evidence by the fast-track courts did not commence. “It is on record that one of the women is saying “please record my evidence because I will not able to withstand the pressure I am facing.” Eventually, she stopped being in touch with me and the next thing I knew was that she had turned hostile. We are in 2022 now; while one of the women passed away, out of the remaining six, only one has not yielded to the pressures she is facing. I had to relocate her for her safety and wellbeing. The final arguments are yet to conclude in the case. How can the data tell you what these women are facing? Should a sexual violence survivor put her life on the line so she can access redress?” Vrinda questions.
She explains that there are a host of reasons a woman may lodge a complaint but not follow it up by giving a statement, or later not cooperate with the investigation. “There is a lot of pressure many women face like threats, intimidation, emotional coercion by family and friends. We know that a majority of the accused in sexual violence cases are those known to the survivor. Very often, women are discouraged with statements like, 'Don’t do this, it will ruin your life,' 'Think about the accused’s wife, family, children,' etc. It is not as though there are systems that all women who complain can access to safeguard themselves and their families. We know of cases where a woman has not come to court because her father has been attacked, she is facing dire threats or has been harmed if she tries to give evidence.”
According to an analysis of National Family Survey data by Livemint in 2018, 99% of instances of sexual violence in India go unreported. Prasanna Gettu, Managing Trustee of The International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC), a non-governmental organisation that aids survivors of domestic violence and gender-based violence, notes that the narrative that most women file fake cases against men is false, and only a small minority of such cases may really be fake, ie, where sexual violence has not happened.
"In the first place, for both domestic violence and sexual assault, women feel very hesitant to report. They are afraid of being judged, and don’t even know how they are going to be perceived by the police. Many times, the police may turn a woman away if they think her story is inconsistent, and in those cases, the complaint may not get registered in the first place. Then, if her experience of dealing with the police during the ensuing investigation is unpleasant — she experiences victim shaming and disbelief — she may decide not to go forward with a complaint. But that does not mean her case is false," Prasanna explains.
It should also be noted that it is quite common for people who have undergone a trauma — such as that inflicted by sexual violence — to have some inconsistencies in their statements because of how trauma affects the brain; dissociation, gaps in memory, etc are frequently seen. However, these human responses to sexual abuse may be considered by trauma uninformed police and courts as grounds for disbelieving a survivor, Prasanna says.
A senior police official from Tamil Nadu who spoke to TNM on condition of anonymity concurs that women face various pressures which may prevent them from reporting, and then seeing the case through. “It depends on her socio-economic location also such as the emotional and financial backing she has, her level of education etc. While I do think that reporting has increased and more women are coming forward now, especially in urban areas, it depends on the case. We cannot be labelling all cases that fall through as ‘false’,” he says.
When we look at the so-called 'false' rape cases, we don’t know why the final report concluded it was a false allegation. And while it is not that the misuse of laws does not happen at all, it is rare that a woman files a fake complaint, going by the available data. An investigation by Rukmini S in The Hindu in 2014, for instance, looked at nearly 600 rape cases recorded in Delhi and found that the largest proportion of the cases were those involving eloped couples, an allegedly consenting couple. In 174 of 189 such cases, after the couples had eloped, the parents – usually the girl’s, who in most cases were between 15 and 18 years of age – filed a police complaint alleging she was kidnapped and raped. This is significant, given how prevalent endogamy is in the country, and inter-community relationships are not favoured.
In 123 of the 583 rape cases considered for the above report, the complainant had either turned hostile, or stopped attending the trial, or retracted her statement saying she had filed a false rape case. “While it is likely that some of this is on account of the pressure exerted on women to withdraw complaints – in two cases, the complainants referred to community members intervening in their depositions – in several others, the complainant said that she had filed a false case for money or as a result of a property dispute,” Rukmini wrote.
Prasanna notes that while there are cases where women are advised by the 'system' to invoke sections of rape and cruelty by husbands (section 498A), these are far and few in between. "In our experience, some of these arise out of the women being unhappy in a marriage and not getting relief or support, facing some sort of harassment or abuse, say, from the in-laws, and not getting support from the husband; not getting a share in the property and so on," Prasanna says, "This kind of misuse happens the same way any other law might be misused. But that does not mean the law should not exist. Besides, given how long drawn out trials tend to be and the impact that has on a woman’s life including her work, her children’s lives if she has them, financial drain, and so on, a majority of women wouldn’t just file a case for the heck of it. Most of them would want to settle or withdraw the case if they can. That does not mean it is a false case.”
NCRB data corroborates this — out of 1,67,067 cases reported or under investigation for cruelty by husband or his relatives, only 5,520 were found to be false.
“Men’s rights activists have always misused this data,” Vrinda argues. “They use anecdotal evidence to substitute nuances that data around section 498A cases may lack. There could be multiple reasons why women don’t go forward or step into the witness box. Neither an acquittal nor closure of a case necessarily makes it false. In fact, this bogey of false cases is used whenever those who have been systemically oppressed – like Dalits and women – have actually tried to use the laws meant for them. On the other hand, the largest number of false cases are being lodged by the government and police against activists, human rights defenders, etc. But there, people don’t want to talk about misuse. The construction of this narrative of 'false cases' is just a misuse of power. What is happening here is that this discourse of false cases takes away the little space that law provides to safeguard and secure redress against the violation the historically oppressed suffer.”
Prasanna also points out that one reason behind the fear that many men and sections of the society seem to have against women filing “false” cases of sexual violence comes from a lack of understanding of consent. “There is a cultural shift where women are accessing more public, work, entertainment, and leisure spaces. However, if a woman shares a drink with someone; if she comes out late in the night to meet you etc, does not mean she is consenting to sexual activity, or inviting any advances. But people are not taught what consent looks like; not helped by the fact that many men think that a “no” could mean “yes” if they persist enough,” she says. She adds that conversations around consent, sexuality education need to be ongoing as well.