Victim-Centric Justice in India: An Analysis of Constitutional Jurisprudence and Statutory Reform under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023

Abstract

Indian criminal procedure has been organised around a single relationship: the State and the accused. The victim of crime appeared in this architecture chiefly as a witness, a source of evidence rather than a holder of enforceable rights. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and came into force on 1 July 2024, is the first comprehensive procedural code to place victim participation, information, and reparation rights directly on the face of the statute. This article undertakes a doctrinal legal analysis of that reform. It traces the constitutional origin of victim rights in the Supreme Court's interpretation of Article 21, examines the principal victim-facing provisions of the BNSS against the precedent they are said to codify, and benchmarks the Indian framework against the European Union's Victims' Rights Directive, South Africa's Child Justice Act, and the victim-impact-statement practice of the United Kingdom and the United States. Applying Howard Zehr's restorative justice framework, the article argues that the BNSS is best understood as a codification of existing judicial doctrine rather than a structural advance toward restorative justice. It concludes that India needs a standalone Victim Rights Act, built on individual needs assessment, a statutory victim impact statement, a restorative justice gateway, and a national authority to standardise victim compensation.