PATNA: Bihar will become the first state in the country to set up a Victim Rights Centre, with Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant scheduled to inaugurate the facility at the Bihar State Legal Services Authority (BLSA) in Patna on Saturday.
A Transgender Helpline will also be launched and a fleet of Multi Utility Vehicles will be flagged off during the event. The CJI will also release the Authority’s publication on the Victim Rights Centre.
The centre is a pilot project of the Bihar State Legal Services Authority and is the first of its kind in the country, officials said.
At present, there is no single agency that receives a victim’s complaints, identifies all entitlements available in a case and follows them through to completion. As a result, rights provided under law can go unclaimed. The scheme identifies the gap as one of coordination rather than the absence of legal provisions.
The centre seeks to address this through a single point of entry, one record for each case so that victims do not have to repeat their accounts at different offices, and binding internal timelines for which the centre will remain accountable to the Authority.
A case will be closed only after relief has been obtained and the outcome verified, or if the victim requests in writing that it be closed.
The centre will not create a new statutory body or require fresh legislation. It will function from the Authority’s existing premises using its existing personnel and resources, while coordinating with the police, hospitals, Child Welfare Committees, One Stop Centres, state departments and organisations already working in the field.
The project has been conceived and taken forward under the guidance of Justice V Kameswar Rao, Chief Justice of the Patna High Court and Patron-in-Chief of the Authority, and Justice Sudhir Singh, Judge of the Patna High Court and Executive Chairman of the Authority.
Policy direction for the centre will rest with a Steering Committee chaired by a Patna High Court judge. Justice Ajeet Kumar will be its first chairman.
The Transgender Helpline will be launched alongside the centre. It will operate under the Authority’s 2023 scheme for the consolidation, rehabilitation and access to justice of transgender persons, which gives effect to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.
The centre will serve as the delivery point for the scheme and assist transgender persons with identity certificates and access to housing, employment, healthcare and welfare benefits.
The launch edition of the Authority’s publication on the centre, to be released on Saturday, contains the scheme, its standard operating procedure and prescribed forms for recording each stage of a case. The publication has been written by advocate Shama Sinha, who proposed the project and serves as its project coordinator.
The pilot project will operate in Patna district for 12 months. Following an evaluation, it will be extended to other districts through the respective District Legal Services Authorities.
