Key Points :
- The Supreme Court on Friday requested Attorney General K.K. Venugopal’s views in a plea filed by nine women lawyers to annul a Madhya Pradesh High Court order granting bail to an accused in a molestation case on the condition that he requests the complainant to tie him a rakhi.
- The petitioners have called the order a gross trivialisation of the trauma caused to the molestation victim and requested the Supreme Court to lay down a set of guidelines for the courts.
- The matter will be next heard on November 2.
The Supreme Court on Friday requested Attorney General K.K. Venugopal’s views in a plea filed by nine women lawyers to annul a Madhya Pradesh High Court order granting bail to an accused in a molestation case on the condition that he requests the complainant to tie him a rakhi. A bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar gave the nod to hold a detailed hearing in the matter after senior advocate Sanjay Parekh, representing the nine lawyers, said the high court’s “weird” bail order had made light of the offence of molestation.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court on 30 July had granted bail to a man accused of molestation on the condition that he and his wife will visit the complainant’s house with a rakhi and a box of sweets on August 3. The court had also asked the accused to give Rs 11,000 to the complainant as a “customary ritual” and seek her blessings, which is a customary practice between brothers and sisters on Raksha Bandhan. The court further asked the man to promise the complainant that he would “protect her to the best of his ability for all times to come”.
Parekh told the court that the high court’s order was a blatant dismissal of the trauma suffered by the complainant, and stated that the “extraordinary” situation prompted the women lawyers to approach the top court. He urged the court to lay down guidelines for high courts and trial courts in order to stop them from prescribing “weird” bail conditions.
The petitioners — Aparna Bhat, G.S. Veena, Kanaka Latha Olavatth, Susan Verita D’Silva, Lakshmi N.B., Lalita Sivaraman Iyer, Rama Ramachandra Iyer, Susmita Durg and Meenakshi K.C. — have introduced themselves as “women who have confronted being objectified as young girls and women who have raised their voices against their own and others’” abuse at various times.
“If social stigma and the vagaries of the criminal judicial system are not enough, the observations such as the one made in the present case by the high court will prove to further deter people from filing complaints,” submitted their petition. To support their claim, the petitioners have shared their personal accounts of how they were treated by numerous men during various stages of their professional and academic lives. The background of the petitioners adds weight to their stand in the case as a third party cannot make a complaint against the said judgement under the criminal law and only the aggrieved can contest the verdict.
“The high court ought to have been cognizant and sensitive to the fact that in a case involving a sexual offence having been committed against a woman, it is immeasurably difficult for the survivor to lodge an FIR and pursue a criminal case against the accused at the threshold,”said the women lawyers, demanding a set of guidelines for the courts.
The bench issued a notice to the office of the top law officer of the country and posted the matter for hearing on November 2.
