Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the judgement of Calcutta High Court which had advised “adolescent girls to control their sexual urges” and restored the conviction under rape charges against a man accused of sexually assaulting a minor and later marrying her.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan reversed the order of the High Court which had acquitted the man for raping a minor girl with whom he had a ‘romantic affair’. It also issued guidelines for the judges on how to write judgments in cases involving adolescents. The detailed judgement of the apex court is yet to be uploaded.
Earlier, the top court had criticised the Calcutta High Court judgment which stated that adolescent girls must control their sexual urges instead of giving in to two minutes of pleasure.
Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan had said the observations of the judgement were “problematic”.
The apex court had said that some part of the judgement “were highly objectionable and completely unwarranted”.
“…Prima facie, we are of the view that, in such a case, the judges are not expected to either express their personal views or preach,” it had observed.
Senior advocate Madhavi Divan was appointed by the top court as amicus curiae to assist the court and advocate Liz Mathew to assist the amicus.
A division bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi Sen of the High Court had advised young girls and boys to rein in sexual urges, while acquitting a man who was convicted for raping a minor girl with whom he had a ‘romantic affair’.
The High Court had voiced concerns over the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) conflating consensual acts among adolescents with sexual abuse and hence called for decriminalising consensual sexual acts involving adolescents above 16 years.
The bench had opined that sexual urge is created by our own action.
“Sex in adolescents is normal but sexual urge or arousal of such urge is dependent on some action by the individual, maybe a man or woman. Therefore, sexual urge is not at all normal and normative. If we stop some action(s), arousal of sexual urge … ceases to be normal,” the judgment had read.
It had, therefore, proposed a ‘duty/obligation based approach’ to the issue, and suggested some duties for both the adolescent females and males.
For adolescent females it had suggested that it is the duty/obligation of every female adolescent protect her right to integrity of her body, protect her dignity and self-worth, control sexual urge/urges as in the eyes of society she is the loser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes.
