A Right for Some, a Favour for the Rest: Victim Protection and the Promise of the New Criminal Codes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48165/msilj.2026.3.1.2Keywords:
victim-centric justice, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, Section 15A SC/ST Act, POCSO, Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, Nebenklage, legal transplantation, Article 21Abstract
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 were introduced as a decisive turn from a punishment-centred to a victim-centred criminal justice system. This article argues that, judged against that promise, the general criminal codes remain structurally State-centric: the victim acquires procedural efficiencies and expanded information but not independent standing, meaningful participation, or a dependable entitlement to support. The deficit, however, is neither one of imagination nor of resources. India does have a strong body of victim-centred law, though it remains scattered across special legislations rather than consolidated in one place. Section 15A of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 sets out an express set of rights for victims and witnesses. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 builds a child-friendly process around the survivor, including the assistance of a support person. And the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 acquired binding legal force when the Supreme Court endorsed it in Mahender Chawla v. Union of India. Deploying German criminal procedure as a comparative benchmark rather than a template, the article contends that India's most feasible route to victim-centric justice is generalisation from within: mainstreaming its own special-statute innovations into the ordinary process of the new codes, financing them through existing but chronically under-utilised victim funds, and calibrating them to survive scrutiny under Articles 14 and 21. Its original contribution is a structured mapping of India's indigenous protections against the German benchmark, and a constitutionally disciplined model for their consolidation.
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