In its plea before the Supreme Court, advocate Aparna Bhat had contended that “such judgments from High Courts would end up trivializing such heinous offences".
The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court wherein it had asked a man, who was accused of sexual assault, to tie a “rakhi” on the victim as a prerequisite condition of bail.
The judgment comes after Supreme Court advocate Aparna Bhat and eight other women had challenged the July 2020 order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Bar and Bench reported. The court had directed the man accused of having outraged the modesty of a woman to present himself before the complainant so that she may tie a “rakhi” on his wrist to be eligible for bail.
While setting aside the order, the apex court issued directions to be followed by lower courts while dealing with bail petitions in matters relating to crimes against women.
In its plea before the Supreme Court, Aparna had contended that “such judgments from High Courts would end up trivializing such heinous offence and that there is a strong likelihood that such observations and directions may result in normalizing what is essentially a crime and has been recognized to be so by the law”.
The top court had also issued a notice to Attorney General K K Venugopal on October 16, 2020, to elicit his views and suggestions on the issue. The AG had then filed written submissions on the steps that could be considered to correct the non-empathetic approach of judges in cases of sexual violence. Venugopal had suggested that judges, who are “old school” and “patriarchal” in their outlook, need to be sensitised so that they do not pass orders objectifying women in cases of sexual violence.
Source: Read Full Article