Three years ago, Madhumita was raped. The agony still continues. "This man has ruined my life. And now I hate myself," says a trembling Madhumita. She has been frequenting the courts, waiting for her turn to be called by the judge.

She has already given her statement to the police. But she has to repeat many a things she wants to erase from her life. For three days, she answered the defence queries. "They attacked my character to prove the intercourse was with consent," Madhumita says. That was not all. For three days, the accused stared at her, revenge in his eyes. "The first day I was hysterical," she says. "It is not easy toanswer when you stand in front of the man who has raped you." Surrounded by men - the counsel, the court staff, the accused and the judge - she had to narrate the incident all over again. In detail.

Whenever words stuck in her throat and refused to come out, defence counsel would jump up to say she had concocted the story. "What do I say when they ask me where were the suspect's hands and legs when he assaulted me?," she says. She said she lost control when the defence counsel asked: "Did it hurt?"

"Tears trickle down her eyes. Madhumita says, "I was assaulted again and again. What I had tried to forget was revived." She wonders if the wound would ever heal.

Madhumita's is a story told and retold in the trial courts every day. The names change but the experience is the same. It is even tougher for Kumari, another rape victim who was sexually assaulted when she was just 15.

When her case came up for cross-questioning - for the second time in three days - she was asked why there was blood on her dress.Stunned, she stared at the defence counsel and then at the Judge.

"The law permits defence counsel to ask such question. Because once rape charge is levelled against the accused person, the onus lies on him to prove that he is innocent. It is for this that defence counsel resorts to such levels," says a trial court judge. Prosecutors too are frank about the trauma the victim has to undergo. "If we try to stop it we are accused of suppressing evidence," says a prosecutor at the Patiala Courts. The issue has been raised by several women organisations but with the demand for an amendment in the rape section (375 of the Indian Penal Code) still pending with the Law Commissioner, victims may have to continue facing trauma in court.

Says All India Democratic Women's Association general secretary Brinda Karat: "Sexual assault on minors has increased tremendously. About two-thirds of the total number of rape cases pending in courts involve minors. The proposed amendment, however, kept in mind that a minor did nothave to undergo sustained torture in court." She says that a proposal submitted to the Law Commissioner 80 years ago has not yet been tabled in Parliament.

Former chief justice K N Singh, who was chairman of the Law Commission from 1992 and 1994, is sympathetic to the victim's plight. "Fair opportunity should be given to the victim to submit her statement which should not be under duress."

Karat says certain steps - like recording the victim's statement through writing taking statements in a place other than the courtroom and without the presence of the accused - can be taken to prevent harassment. Says lawyer P N Lekhi, "Questions manifesting the wild conjectures raised by the defence should not be allowed."

(Names have been changed to protest the victims' identity)