The Apex Court has sought Attorney General KK Venugopal's view on a petition about Courts imposing bail conditions for sex crime offenders which end up further harassing & objectifying their victims.

A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar issued a notice to the office of Attorney General & sought his assistance in the matter while posting the matter for hearing on Nov 2.

The Supreme Court also asked the petitioner to serve a copy of the petition to the Attorney General's office.

9 women Advocates have approached the Supreme Court against the backdrop of a Madhya Pradesh HC's order which directed a man accused of sexual assault to visit his victim at home on Rakshabandhan & "allow" her to tie a rakhi on him as a condition of bail.

During the hearing, Senior Lawyer Sanjay Parikh told the Bench that this plea was filed under an extraordinary situation. Such condition for bail is against CrPC, it trivialises the offence, he argued.

Parikh added, "Courts should not impose such weird conditions for bail... a direction needs to be issued to High Courts & trial courts."

"We are not on the bail condition but the observations such as this trivialise the offences against women in sexual assault cases," he further contended.

Approaching the Supreme Court, the women lawyers, led by Lawyer Aparna Bhat, said the HC's order was a "trivialisation of victim's trauma."

The law prescribes the victim be kept far away from the accused, the petition said, adding that instead, here the HC has ordered the accused to visit the home of the woman -- the very place where the crime is alleged to have occurred.

The order only succeeds to victimise the woman & retards the years of work done to sensitise the courts about how damaging it would be to attempt a compromise "by way of marriage or mediation between the accused & the survivor", plea added.

The plea of women lawyers further said that the High Court further ordered the accused to gift the woman Rs 11,000 "as a customary ritual usually offered by brothers to sisters on such occasion & shall also seek her blessings."

Earlier in Sept, the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh HC had granted bail to a man, accused of outraging the modesty of a woman, on condition that he has to celebrate 'Raksha Bandhan' with the complainant & promise to protect her.

The bench had allowed the bail application of the accused on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 50,000 & one solvent surety of the like amount. The bench had also directed him to tender Rs 11,000 to the complainant as a customary ritual usually offered by the brothers to sisters & to tender Rs 5,000 to the son of the complainant for purchase of clothes & sweets.

Source Link

Picture Source :