NEW DELHI – India’s outrage is mounting over comments made by the country’s chief justice in two rape cases, and thousands of women have signed a letter this week demanding that he resign.
Judge Sharad Arvind Bobde, the head of the Supreme Court of India, asked a 23-year-old man accused of raping a minor whether he would marry his victim, who is now an adult.
The victim, who under Indian law could not be identified, accused the man, a distant relative and a civil servant at the Maharashtra government, of repeatedly stalking and raping her when she was 16 years old.
The judge’s comments have sparked new demands that people in power, and especially men, should do more to improve the treatment of women and girls in India.
A spate of shocking assaults in recent years has galvanized women’s groups and other activists to change their attitudes towards sexual violence.
Justice for victims is scarce. Of the tens of thousands of rape cases reported in India each year, only a handful have resulted in prosecutions, according to figures from the National Crime Records Bureau. Activists believe the real scale of the problem is much worse, as many cases are never reported due to the stigma.
Judge Bobde on Monday heard a petition filed by the accused in the statutory rape case for relief from the jail sentence of a lower court.
“Will you marry her?” Justice Bobde asked according to Indian media reports.
“You should have thought before seducing and raping the young girl,” he added. “We do not force you to marry. Let us know if you want. ”
Activists said they were “terrified and furious”.
“Your marriage proposal as a friendly solution to the rape case of a minor girl is worse than heinous and insensitive, because it undermines the right of victims to seek justice,” he said. open letter published Said Tuesday.
Judge Bobde did not respond.
Sex with minors is a crime in India under the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offenses Act of 2012. Mandatory sentences range from ten years imprisonment to life imprisonment, and bail is rarely granted.
According to court documents, the families reached an agreement that the man would marry the girl when she turned 18. The man later renounced his promise and married someone else. In 2019, when the family filed a case against the man, a district court granted him bail.
However, the Bombay High Court annulled the order and wrote a serious criticism of the lower court.
“Such an approach is a clear indication that the learned judge does not have sufficient jurisdiction,” the court wrote.
The accused man then approached the high court. Judge Bobde and the other two members of the bank granted him four weeks’ protection against arrest.
More than 4,000 women signed the letter demanding the resignation of the Chief Justice, including Anuradha Banerji, an activist of the women’s rights group Saheli.
“When the Chief Justice of India makes these archaic and patriarchal comments, it indicates the deeper decay in the legal system as well as in society,” she said. Banerji said. “Millions of young girls are going to know that their values are in marriage and not in their personality.”
The victim’s lawyer declined to comment Friday.
In a separate case, it appears that Judge Bobde, according to the letter and media reports, approves rape in the context of a consensus relationship.
“Can the sexual intercourse between them be called rape if two people live as husband and wife, no matter how brutal the husband is?” Justice Bobde asked when he filed a petition by a man accused of raping a woman who was his partner.
The uproar over the judge’s comments comes a month after another Bombay High Court judge, Judge Pushpa Ganedivala, blocked her promotion after several of her verdicts in sexual assault came under criticism.
Her ruling in a child abuse case that the suitcase of a minor without skin contact could not be named as a sexual assault under the Child Protection Act sparked outrage. She acquitted the man, who a lower court found guilty of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old. After India’s attorney general said it set a dangerous precedent, the Supreme Court postponed the ruling.
In two separate cases, Judge Ganedivala acquitted two other men accused of raping minors, saying the victims’ testimony was unreliable.
Following her rulings, a panel in the Supreme Court led by Justice Bobde reversed her decision to make her a permanent judge of the Supreme Court in Bombay.