New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a Calcutta High Court ruling, wherein adolescent girls were advised to “learn how to control their sexual urges”.
A bench, headed by Justice Abhay S. Oka, pronounced its verdict in a suo moto proceedings initiated in the wake of “sweeping observations” made in the high court order, including on the appeal filed by the West Bengal government.
In December last year, the top court had exercised suo moto cognisance due to “highly objectionable and completely unwarranted” findings recorded by the Calcutta High Court suggesting “every female adolescent control sexual urge/urges as in the eyes of the society she is the loser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes”.
The observations were made by a division bench of the Calcutta High Court as it dealt with an appeal against conviction under Sections 363 and 366 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860 as well as Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.
The bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Das and Partha Sarathi Sen overturned an earlier order by a lower court sentencing a teenager to 20 years imprisonment for having sex with his romantic partner, who is also a minor. It acquitted the teenage boy after the minor girl, also a teenager, admitted that the physical relations were consensual since both had decided to marry each other at a later stage. She also admitted that neither she nor her romantic partner, both hailing from remote rural areas, were aware that 18 was the official age of sexual relationship as per Indian law.
“In the appeal against conviction, the High Court was called upon to adjudicate only on the merits of the appeal and nothing else. But we find that the High Court has discussed so many issues which were irrelevant. Prima facie, we are of the view that while writing a judgment in such an appeal, the Hon’ble Judges are not expected to express their personal views. They are not expected to preach, ” the Supreme Court had said, as it took suo moto cognisance of the issue. It had appointed senior advocate Madhavi Goradia Divan as amicus curiae to assist the court.
