The Supreme Court’s verdict expanding the definition of a “victim” under criminal law is a timely and necessary reaffirmation of the idea that justice cannot be allowed to collapse under the weight of procedural formalities. By holding that children or other legal heirs of a deceased complainant can continue revision proceedings, the court has strengthened the place of victims within India’s criminal justice system and corrected a perceived skew in favour of the accused and the State. At the heart of the judgment is an expansive reading of Section 2(wa) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which defines a victim as a person who has suffered loss or injury and explicitly includes guardians or legal heirs. A bench of justices Sanjay Karol and Manoj Misra ruled that criminal revision proceedings do not necessarily abate upon the death of the person who initiated them, particularly when the revision is pursued by an informant or complainant and the underlying trial continues.