DC Edit | Be more sensitive to women

A painful duty of judges is to preside over cases in which a person, generally male, is accused of sexual assault and rape. It is a comment on the state of our male-dominated society that such an enormous number of cases should come up in courts. Even so, the Allahabad high court judges are in the news too frequently for what are seen as unusual, if not gratuitous, comments in cases of rape in which it is perceived that male culpability is not implied or proven.

Laws on sexual offences are primarily women-centric, but they need to be considering the long history of patriarchy in most societies, especially Indian. The facts of a case in which a judge came to a conclusion that was seen as victim or woman-shaming may even have merited the granting of bail.

It is the insensitivity of the judge’s ruling averring the victim was “inviting trouble herself” with her behaviour after a group of them had imbibed alcohol and she had sought a night’s haven with a friend that raises questions about the attitude of males. This seems to reflect in the wording of the ruling. The judge had also equated the fact that the woman held a post-graduate degree with competence to understand the “morality and significance of her act”, and seems to have drawn the conclusion that the act was consensual.

Earlier, a judge’s remarks on pulling on “pyjama strings” not being attempt to rape while implying that certain clothing may mean consent had raised the ire of people who expect judges to be sensitive towards women because they are invariably the vulnerable sex in matters of sexual violence. The top court had then to step in to chastise the insensitivity and inhuman approach of the judge.

The circumstances of cases may vary, and some may entail judgments in favour of those charged with the despicable crime of assaulting a woman sexually, but the problem lies with male chauvinism creeping in to affect the judges’ judgement in pronouncing orders. Rape cases cannot be trivialised with facetious observations. A great deal of maturity is called for in these matters which, unfortunately, was seen to be lacking in a couple of judges of the high court in Uttar Pradesh.