Photo: IANS
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has expressed strong disapproval of a Patna High Court ruling that held that removing a woman's salwar and pressing her chest did not amount to an attempt to rape.
According to LiveLaw, senior advocate Shobha Gupta brought the July 15 high court order to the notice of a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana. The bench observed that some judgments appeared to have been delivered without adequate research and indicated that it would issue a detailed order addressing the Patna High Court's reasoning, The Wire reported.
The apex court also directed all courts to strictly adhere to the National Judicial Academy Expert Committee's guidelines on judicial sensitivity in sexual offence cases. It ordered that the guidelines be uploaded on the websites of the Supreme Court, high courts and district courts, and circulated to the National Judicial Academy, state judicial academies, National Law Universities and other university law departments.
The court further directed Director of Prosecution and Director General of Police in all states to instruct police stations to follow the handbook while registering FIRs and filing charge sheets, LiveLaw reported.
During the hearing, Gupta also referred to an earlier Allahabad High Court judgment that had sparked controversy by holding that grabbing a minor girl's breasts, breaking the string of her pyjamas and attempting to drag her beneath a culvert would not constitute an offence of attempt to rape.
Instead, the Allahabad High Court had held that the acts would amount to aggravated sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which carries a lesser punishment.
According to NDTV, the Patna High Court ruling was delivered by Justice Purnendu Singh in a case arising from a 2008 incident. The judge held that removing a woman's salwar and pressing her chest constituted the offence of outraging a woman's modesty rather than an attempt to rape.
The case stemmed from an incident in which a woman had accompanied her father to a photo studio in Amarpur. The studio owner allegedly bolted the door and attempted to assault her before fleeing after her father intervened. The accused had challenged his conviction for attempt to rape and wrongful confinement before the High Court.