The Supreme Court is set to pronounce on Thursday its judgement on a plea by a group of women lawyers questioning a direction like accused should get 'Rakhi' tied on his hand by the victim as a condition of bail in sexual offences, trivialising the trauma suffered by her.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and S Ravindra Bhat will deliver the verdict on a petition filed by advocate Aparna Bhat who sought guidelines for the court in such matters.
The plea was against a Madhya Pradesh High Court's order of July 30, 2020. The petitioners said there have been instances of such orders from other states too.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, whose assistance was sought by the court, said the order passed by the High Court an accused in molestation case to "get Rakhi tied from victim" is "nothing less than a drama" and must be condemned.
Maintaining that judges must be taught about gender sensitisation, he said that the National Judicial Academy and the state academies should teach that this is not permissible. Judges recruitment exam should have a portion on gender sensitisation, he added.
The woman lawyers, for their part, contended such orders objectified the victims. The HC should not have put such weird conditions for bail, which was against the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, they said.
In their plea, they said it has been seen in cases of sexual offence, women and families do not seek redressal from the criminal justice system primarily to avoid such kind of secondary trauma that they are subjected to in the process of a criminal trial.
(Published 17 March 2021, 15:43 IST)
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