Justice is a secret

This article draws attention to the culture of compromise that underwrites rape prosecutions. This aspect of rape prosecutions has not been sufficiently discussed either within the women’s movement, the judiciary or the contemporary discourse on judicial reform in India. I argue that the socio-legal process encapsulated in the word ‘compromise’ (or samadhan, the coexisting Gujarati usage) is an exposition of how secrecy may be thought of as ‘indispensable to the operation of power rather than as an abuse of power’ (Taussig 1999: 57). Unlike other forms of out-of-court settlements described as mechanisms of alternate dispute resolution, plea-bargaining or mediation in courts of law, compromise is not legal in rape cases in India. The term ‘culture of compromise’ emphasises how a criminal trial becomes a site for contestation between the accused, the complainant and the prosecuting agencies over how to monopolise the framing of an out-of-court settlement.