On February 16, 2026, the Chhattisgarh High Court reclassified a man’s seven-year rape conviction to three-and-a-half years for “attempt to commit rape”, drawing a decisive line between penetration and its absence. Legally, the reasoning rested on whether penetration could be conclusively proved. Psychologically, however, the judgment marked not closure but another rupture in a survivor’s long struggle for peace.
This is not a technical critique of the judgment. It is a counter-story — an attempt to weigh eight hours of captivity against the parsing of a single anatomical distinction, and to examine what such distinctions mean for mental well-being.
Sexual violence is not a discrete event with a clean endpoint. It is a psychological earthquake whose aftershocks can last decades. The survivor in this case, assaulted on May 21, 2004 at the age of 21, was dragged to a house, stripped, bound, gagged and locked in a room. For eight hours she remained captive. She later testified that the accused kept his private part above her vagina and ejaculated.
When her mother untied her, the physical ordeal ended. The trauma did not.
Forensic nurse Ann Wolbert Burgess and sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, who first documented Rape Trauma Syndrome in the 1970s, described two phases: An acute phase marked by shock, fear, hypervigilance and sleep disturbance, followed by a long reorganisation phase that may never fully resolve. Survivors frequently relive sensory fragments — smells, pressure, sounds — with painful clarity.
Neuroscience helps explain why. During extreme stress, the hippocampus, which orders memories in time and sequence, can become impaired, while the amygdala, the brain’s fear centre, becomes hyperactive. Traumatic memories are often fragmented rather than linear. Yet courts expect precision.
In this case, the High Court noted a discrepancy: At one point, the survivor referred to penetration; later she clarified that the accused kept his organ above hers. That distinction proved decisive. But trauma does not unfold in neatly segmented chapters. A survivor’s testimony is not a legal brief; it is the recounting of terror.
The legal process itself can retraumatise. Researchers describe this as “secondary victimisation”: The harm caused by institutional responses. Testifying requires survivors to narrate the worst hours of their lives before strangers. Cross-examination subjects them to scepticism, probing and insinuation.
For this survivor, the trial stretched across more than two decades. Each hearing meant seeing her attacker, reliving events,and waiting again. Healing rarely thrives in suspended animation.
This experience can mirror the original assault in disturbing ways. During the rape, she was powerless, her body controlled by another's will. During cross-examination, she is again powerless, her narrative controlled by another's questions. The original trauma involved the violation of physical boundaries; the legal process involves the violation of psychological boundaries. The survivor must once again endure having her most intimate experiences exposed, dissected and challenged by strangers.
Human rights lawyers in Chhattisgarh Degree Prasad Chouhan said, "The decision by the Chhattisgarh High Court reflects the patriarchal dominance, coercion, and control over women in Indian society, and the religious principles that treat women as an object."
Although India has currently ushered in a new era of criminal law with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, some recent judiciary decisions on sexual violence have created a shocking situation. Such decisions expose the gender insensitivity prevalent in the Indian judiciary and the persistence of an archaic mindset even in modern times.
In this case, while the court’s language is clinical, the experience was not. The crushing weight of a body, the helplessness of being bound, the humiliation of semen on the body — these remain even when an anatomical threshold was not crossed.
Legally, the High Court performed a careful distinction between “preparation” and “attempt”, concluding that the acts demonstrated clear intent to commit rape but did not establish completed penetration. The conviction was altered accordingly. Within the architecture of criminal law, this reasoning may be coherent. Within the psychology of trauma, it can feel like diminishment.
Survivors require validation to integrate trauma into their life narratives in a Healthy manner that allows for meaning-making and continued growth. Courts play a symbolic role in that validation. When a conviction affirms rape, it signals full recognition. When a conviction is reduced, it may signal partial recognition.
The legal message becomes: What happened to you does not quite meet the threshold. Your suffering is acknowledged, but not fully.
Psychologists emphasise the importance of narrative coherence in recovery. Survivors must make sense of what happened in a way that acknowledges its gravity. A verdict that reframes the violation can disrupt that coherence, producing identity confusion and renewed distress.
The BNS defines rape through seven clauses, each grounded in penetration — by penis, object or mouth. Other forms of sexual assault fall under separate provisions such as assault with intent to outrage modesty or sexual harassment, carrying far lighter penalties.
This structure creates a hierarchy of harm. Penetration attracts the harshest punishment; non-penetrative yet coercive sexual acts are treated as lesser offences. But trauma does not calibrate itself according to statutory gradations. In this particular case, was the woman's violation proportionately smaller?
The law quantifies the unquantifiable. It measures injury through anatomy, not through coercion, duration or psychological impact.
When the judgment entered the public domain, headlines distilled it into a stark proposition: Ejaculation without penetration is not rape. For the survivor, this meant her most intimate trauma became public debate.
Reduced sentencing also means earlier release. Perceived safety is central to trauma recovery. The prospect of encountering an attacker sooner can reignite hypervigilance and fear. Institutional trust — already fragile after assault — may erode further when the system appears to downgrade the offence.
What would justice look like if it accounted fully for mental well-being?
It would include judicial training on the neurobiology of trauma. It would provide psychological support throughout proceedings. It would recognise that coercion, captivity and forced sexual contact can be as devastating as penetration. And it would frame verdicts with awareness of their symbolic weight.
The Chhattisgarh judgment is not an anomaly but a reflection of a penetrative-centric paradigm embedded in law. Precision is essential in criminal justice. Yet when precision narrows recognition, survivors may feel unseen.
For the woman in Arjuni, the gavel has fallen. The case file is closed. But the psychological sentence continues, shaped not only by eight hours in 2004, but by a 2026 verdict that redefined those hours in narrower terms.
Until legal definitions expand to encompass the full spectrum of sexual violence, survivors will continue to carry not only the trauma of assault, but the quieter trauma of partial belief.
Chitta Ranjan Pani is an independent researcher. Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.