Conflict of interest
SHILLONG: A rape victim has exposed alleged unethical practice of a lawyer who appeared for the victim as Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) in her case and as also as defence counsel of the accused in a separate case.
Citing conflict of interest, the victim on Wednesday sought the intervention of Law department to change the APP by stating that the lawyer had not protected her interest while dealing with the case in KHADC court
In a letter addressed to the Special Secretary, Law, the victim said that during the hearing of the case , when the defence lawyer questioned her in 2010 whether she had aborted the child, to her shock, the APP kept quiet and did not object to the questioning of the defence lawyer.
The rape incident took place then the victim was seven years old and the age of the accused was 20. The victim said in the letter that she was not even aware of the word abortion then.
“I feel that cross examination should have been limited to the incident of rape rather than referring to the issue of abortion”, the victim said. Another alleged aberration the victim pointed out was that when she attended as a witness in the lower court in connection with another rape incident of a minor which took place at Mawryngkneng, to her utter shock, she found that the same APP in her case was the defence lawyer who was to cross examine her in the Mawryngkneng case.
“I feel that it is clearly a conflict of interest and goes against the ethics of the legal fraternity and this may be the reason that the APP dealing with my case never gave me courage to have hope,” the letter said.
When contacted, the Special Secretary Law L M Sangma said that the department is examining the concerns of the victim.