9 Women Lawyers Move SC Challenging MP HC's Bail Condition Asking Man Accused Of Sexual Assault To Get Rakhi Tied By Victim [Read Petition]

Supreme Court advocate Aparna Bhat and eight other women lawyers have challenged (before the Apex Court) one of the Bail Conditions in the Bail Order dated July 30 passed by Madhya Pradesh High Court, wherein the Court had imposed a bail condition upon the person (accused of outraging the modesty of his neighbour) to request the victim to tie the rakhi around his wrist.The Plea has been moved through Advocate Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar seeking a stay on the bail condition imposed by the final judgment and order dated 30.07.2020 passed by the Hon'ble Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore in MCRC No. 23350/2020.It may be noted that the Petitioners have challenged the above-mentioned Bail Condition only (and not the Bail order in toto).The Bail condition which has been challenged in the Petition stated,"(i) the applicant along with his wife shall visit the house of the complainant with Rakhi thread/band on 03rd August, 2020 at 11:00 am with a box of sweets and request the complainantSarda Bai to tie the Rakhi band to him with the promise to protect her to the best of his ability for all times to come. He shall also tender Rs. 11,000/- (Rs. Eleven Thousand Only) to the complainant as the customary ritual usually offered by the brothers to sisters on such occasion and shall also seek her blessings. The applicant shall also tender Rs. 5,000/- to the son of the complainant-Vishal for purchase of clothes and sweets." - MP HC in MCRC No. 23350/2020Key averments of the Plea· The plea states that the High Court erred in imposing a condition that defeated the very purpose of granting bail by directing the alleged perpetrator to establish contact with the victim and that the HC failed to appreciate that in most cases of sexual violence, the prosecutrix turns hostile and in many of these cases it is because she gets intimidated and/or induced by the family of the accused.· The Petition avers that 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.· The plea further states,"In the context of Rakshabandhan being a festival of guardianship between brothers and sisters, the said bail condition amounts to the gross trivialization of the trauma suffered by the Complainant in the present case." (emphasis supplied)· Importantly, the plea also states,"That the present case is of particular concern since it has taken years to undo the damaging approach followed by Courts whereby cases involving sexual offences committed against women are attempted to be compromised by way of marriage or mediation between the accused and the survivor." (emphasis supplied)· The plea also maintain that imposing a condition whereby the accused i.e. Respondent No. 2 is required to go to the house of the Complainant on the festival of Rakshabandhan and request her to tie a rakhi around his wrist with the "promise to protect her to the best of his ability for all times to come" results in further victimization of the survivor in her own house.Application filed seeking directions of the Supreme CourtIn an application filed by the Petitioners seeking directions from the Supreme Court on Saturday (10th October), it has been stated that it is becoming a rather frequent phenomenon where extraneous conditions/observations are being made in many cases related to women, which tend to trivialize the offences committed.Further, the application states that the violence against women and more particularly sexual violence against women, are extremely serious offences and needed to be treated stringently by the Courts.As has been seen in the recent past, the Application further maintains, the violence is getting gorier and perpetrators of the offences are operating with impunity completely confident that law enforcement is complicit and/or a willing participant in suppressing these complaints.In this context, the Applications lists out those instances where observations have been made in cases relating to offences against women including cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 ("POCSO Act") which are totally extraneous and stand to trivialise the trauma suffered by a woman which violates the dignity of a woman as protected by Article 21.[NOTE: The details of such cases along with the observations of different Courts could be found in the Application filed by the Petitioners which has been attached below.]In many of these cases, the Application states, while granting bail to the accused in rape cases and cases under the POCSO Act, the courts, by relying upon the factum of marriage having been arranged/solemnized between the victim and accused, have made extraneous observations.It has been averred in the application that in many cases these conditions are actually like compromise, which...

9 Women Lawyers Move SC Challenging MP HC's Bail Condition Asking Man Accused Of Sexual Assault To Get Rakhi Tied By Victim [Read Petition]

Sparsh Upadhyay

Tags