The Supreme Court on Monday (May 4) held that survivors of acid attacks, who were forced to consume acid and suffered internal injuries without any visible scarring, will be considered acid attack victims under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. The bench of CJI Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said that the clarification would apply retrospectively from the day the Act came into force and also informed the government that existing punishment for acid attack had failed as a deterrent, suggested reversing the burden of proof onto the accused and said acid sellers should be made co-accused in such cases. The order came in a petition filed by Shaheen Malik , who herself was a survivor and had flagged a gap in law that was leaving out an entire category of victims without access to state support. The gap in the law The RPwD Act includes acid attack survivors in its list of specified disabilities. But the definition it settled on was narrow.…