Abstract

The rights of victims, and indeed victimology, is an evolving jurisprudence. From the victimology’s viewpoint, retribution is one of the goals of sentencing policy, and restoration is one of the goals of compensating policy. Therefore, both goals attract equal importance to impart confidence to society in the criminal justice system. The steps taken by the Indian judiciary are commendable. The present paper tried to explore the suitability and viability of the Victim Impact Report (VIR) method designed by the High Court of Delhi to strengthen mechanisms of awarding compensation to victims of crime under the Criminal Code to ensure the aim and objective of and imparting complete justice. The paper also tried to compare the Victim Impact Statement (VIS) with VIR to explore whether they can substitute each other in principle. If yes, which ones have more potential from the practicality and applicability perspective.

Keywords