THE OTHER SIDE OF GENDER JUSTICE: SCIENTIFICALLY MEASURING AND PREVENTING FALSE-CASE VICTIMIZATION WHILE PROTECTING GENUINE COMPLAINANTS

AUTHOR – KARTHIKEYAN J* & GAYATHRI J**

* STUDENT AT AMITY LAW SCHOOL NOIDA, AMITY UNIVERSITY.

** ADVOCATE, MADRAS HIGH COURT

BEST CITATION – KARTHIKEYAN J & GAYATHRI J, THE OTHER SIDE OF GENDER JUSTICE: SCIENTIFICALLY MEASURING AND PREVENTING FALSE-CASE VICTIMIZATION WHILE PROTECTING GENUINE COMPLAINANTS, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (8) OF 2026, PG. 782-795, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344. DOI – https://doi.org/10.65393/IJLRV6I885

ABSTRACT:

The gender justice discourse has largely confined itself to the protection of the victim, feminist legal reform, and frames of violence prevention, whilst the study of false accusations is fragmented amongst procedural law, criminal adjudication, and judicial pronouncements. While literature acknowledges the reputational, psychic, and legal injuries inflicted by false accusations, there is scarce study about the burden produced by the procedure itself in various legal regimes. This study seeks to fill this gap by exploring whether evidence standards, police action, and procedural safeguards create different levels of burden in accusation-driven proceedings. I conceptualize this research as an exploration of feminist readings of due process at the procedural level; it does not seek to critique protected legislation but instead analyzes how institutional design plays a mediating role for competing concerns over complainant protection and adjudicative impartiality. I use a comparative doctrinal methodology by examining statutory rules, rules of procedure, and judicial precedents in India, the UK, Canada, and Australia for pre-trial interventions, evidence review, and post-acquittal corrective measures. The study operationalizes “procedural victimization” as a discrete category of harm engendered through the legal process, rather than its outcome; it uses FAIM or “False Accusation Impact Model” to measure procedural burden across four dimensions-reputational harm, legal limbo duration, socio-economic disruption, and institutional delay correction. Findings suggest procedural justice is contingent not on the protection of vulnerable but rather on the interplay of evidentiary review, police power, institutional safeguards etc. in early stage proceedings. The paper proposes an objective measure to assess balance within these gender-protective legal systems.

Keywords: legal reform, Procedural Justice, Gender Justice False Accusation, False Accusation Impact Model (FAIM), Judicial process, Wrongful prosecution, Legal Reform, Procedural Fairness, Institutional bias.