SC takes corrective steps to curb gender-stereotypical comments from judges

A judgment by the Supreme Court forbidding judges from making gender stereotypical comments got here as a corrective voice from inside the highest judiciary.

The judgment, pronounced on March 18, got here days after the court docket ran right into a maelstrom of criticism after the Chief Justice of India (CJI), throughout a digital listening to on March 1, reportedly requested an alleged rapist’s lawyer to enquire whether his client would marry the survivor.

On March 8, Chief Justice Bobde stated he was “completely misquoted”. The CJI stated the court docket had the very best respect for womanhood. The prime decide’s assertion coincided with International Women’s Day.

Ten days later, a Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and S. Ravindra Bhat, in its judgment, urged courts to keep away from utilizing reasoning/language which diminished a sexual offence and tended to trivialise the survivor.

“Even a solitary instance of such order or utterance in court, reflects adversely on the entire judicial system of the country, undermining the guarantee to fair justice to all, and especially to victims of sexual violence (of any kind from the most aggravated to the so-called minor offences),” the judgment, authored by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, stated.

The judgment stopped courts from attempting to mandate marriage or compromise between a intercourse offender and his sufferer. The judgment was based mostly on an enchantment towards a Madhya Pradesh High Court order directing an alleged molester to “allow” his sufferer to tie a rakhi on him.

This judgment is one amongst a sequence of interventions with which the apex court docket has clamped down on abuse and intercourse stereotyping of ladies.

Some of the notable judgments which have lashed out at intercourse stereotyping embody the framing of the Vishaka Guidelines on sexual harassment of ladies in working locations, and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s historic judgment giving girls Armed Forces officers equal entry to Permanent Commission whereas debunking the institution’s declare that ladies have been physiologically weaker than males.

Justice Chandrachud, within the Permanent Commission for ladies officers case, stated “women officers of the Indian Army have brought laurels to the force… Their track record of service to the nation is beyond reproach. To cast aspersion on their abilities on the ground of gender is an affront not only to their dignity as women but to the dignity of the members of the Indian Army — men and women — who serve as equal citizens in a common mission”.

In the Anuj Garg case, the Supreme Court had rebuked “the notion of romantic paternalism”, which, “in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage”.