Rape case trials: The endless waiting for Justice

Due to the increase in rape and atrocities against women in the country, the Bangladesh Women and Children Repression Prevention Act 2000 (Nari-O-Shishu Nirjaton Daman Ain) was amended in 2020 to ensure the maximum punishment of death penalty. Five years have passed since then. Even the provision of the maximum punishment could not reduce the extreme atrocities like rape. Even though the cases related to rape are increasing, only a few judgements are being served.

Sources said that after the provision of death penalty for rape, 33,105 cases are pending in lower courts for more than five years. In addition, another 1,702 cases are pending in the High Court. Apart from this, there are 19,796 cases are under investigation by the police. On the other hand, 47 district units of PBI have investigated 926 cases filed in police stations in the last 5 years. At the same time, 1,209 CR cases (filed in court) are under investigation in PBI on the orders of the court.

On July 18, 2019, the High Court, under the authority of Article 109 of the Constitution, issued seven directions to complete the trial of rape cases quickly.

They are...

1. The rape and post-rape murder cases pending in the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunals should be completed quickly on priority basis within the time limit prescribed by law (180 days from the date of receipt of the case for trial). The judges of the tribunals concerned were being instructed to take all legal measures in this regard.

2. All tribunals of the country should conduct the case continuously every working day from the start of the hearing of the case until it is completed as per the provisions of Section 20 of the Women and Child Repression Prevention Act-2000.

3. In order to ensure the presence of witnesses on the scheduled date and the security of witnesses, a monitoring committee should be formed in each district comprising the Additional District Magistrate, Additional Superintendent of Police (Administration), a representative of the Civil Surgeon and the Public Prosecutor of the tribunal concerned.

4. The Public Prosecutor of the Tribunal shall be the coordinator of the committee and shall submit a monthly report on the activities of the committee to the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. In districts where there are more than one tribunal, the Public Prosecutor of all the tribunals shall be included in the Monitoring Committee and the senior most among them shall act as the coordinator.

5. The Monitoring Committee shall be held accountable if the State party fails to produce a witness in the court on the due date without good reason. The Monitoring Committee shall also monitor the issue of summons to the witnesses at the earliest.

6. If, after receiving the summons on the due date, an official witness such as a magistrate, police, doctor or other expert fails to appear to give evidence without satisfactory reasons, the Tribunal shall consider recommending departmental action against the witness and, if necessary, ordering the suspension of his salary.

7. The court's well-considered opinion is that it is necessary to immediately enact a witness protection law and the court also expects the government to enact a law on the matter in a very short time.

Due to the non-compliance of these directions issued by the High Court, the backlog of rape cases has not been reduced, on the contrary, it has increased. In such a situation, the current interim government issued the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025 in October last year. In this, the investigation time of rape cases was halved from 30 days to 15 days. The trial time was also halved from 180 days to 90 days. But even that did not bring much momentum to the trial of rape cases.

Human rights leader and Supreme Court lawyer Elina Khan told Views Bangladesh: "Due to various reasons, the trial of rape cases in our country does not finally see the light. This is very unfortunate."

"According to the existing law, one of the problems in rape cases is DNA certificates. There is no opportunity to get DNA certificates in all regions of our country. Not only the victim, but also the accused need a forensic report. However, the facilities for DNA forensic reports are very inadequate. This is why the trial of rape cases is delayed. In most cases, the case is dismissed due to the destruction of evidence. Then the verdict of the trial is just a silent cry," she added.

Supreme Court lawyer and President of the human rights organization Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, Manzil Murshid, told Views Bangladesh: "While political cases are tried in special courts, rape cases are tried in tribunals. Which is much slower than special courts."

"The Prevention of Violence against Women and Children Act has strict punishment provisions for many crimes. Later, the law was amended to include the death penalty in rape cases. But although the punishment in the law is severe, the complexity of its implementation has increased. Therefore, the length of the trial of rape cases has not decreased at all," he added.

Attorney General Md. Asaduzzaman told Views Bangladesh: "The current interim government has halved the investigation and trial time for these cases to resolve them quickly. Previously, the investigating officer of the case would be changed, which would delay the completion of the case. In the new amendment, the person who is designated as the investigating officer must complete the investigation within the specified time. It has been said that the investigating officer cannot be changed. In addition, the amendment states that no one can be granted bail on the pretext of not completing the trial within 90 days. The current law states that if the trial is not completed within 180 days, bail could be granted. I hope that with this new amendment to the law, rape cases will be resolved quickly in the future."