GENDERED CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC OFFENCES: A CRITICAL CRIMINAL LAW ANALYSIS OF WOMEN VICTIMS AND JUDICIAL RESPONSE IN INDIA

Abstract

Economic offences have conventionally been analysed within Indian criminal law as property- or institution-centric crimes, largely ignoring their differentiated impact on women victims. This study examines the gendered consequences of economic offences and evaluates the judicial and institutional response to women victims in India, with specific empirical focus on the Aligarh region of Uttar Pradesh. Adopting a mixed-methods socio-legal design, the study integrates doctrinal analysis with empirical data collected from 200 participants, including women victims, judicial officers, police investigators, prosecutors, and civil society actors. Advanced inferential statistical techniques—such as chi-square tests, logistic regression, ANOVA, and factor analysis—were combined with thematic qualitative analysis derived from interviews, courtroom ethnography, and document review. The findings reveal that women’s economic victimisation is predominantly relational, occurring within domestic, familial, and informal financial contexts, and is marked by under-registration of FIRs, investigative delay, high attrition rates, and minimal compensation. Rural residence, familial relationship with the accused, and lack of legal aid significantly reduce access to justice, while institutional actors acknowledge gender bias but lack structural mechanisms to address it. The study demonstrates that procedural neutrality in criminal law often reproduces substantive inequality for women victims. It concludes that economic offences must be re-conceptualised through a gender-sensitive criminal law lens, supported by institutional reform, judicial sensitisation, and victim-centric compensation mechanisms.