SC sets aside Cal HC’s order asking adolescent girls to ‘control sexual urges’
The Statesman | 21 August 2024
The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a Calcutta High Court judgment, which had advised “adolescent girls to control their sexual urges”, and restored the conviction of an accused, charged of sexually assaulting a minor girl and later marrying her.
Reversing the high court judgment, acquitting the accused man for raping a minor girl with whom he had a ‘romantic affair’, a Bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan also issued guidelines for the judges to follow while writing judgments in the cases involving adolescents.
Earlier, describing as “problematic” the observations in the high court judgment which stated that adolescent girls must control their sexual urges instead of giving in to two minutes of pleasure, the top court had said that some parts of the high court judgment “were highly objectionable and completely unwarranted”.
“…Prima facie, we are of the view that, in such a case, the judges are not expected to either express their personal views or preach,” the top court had observed.
Senior advocate Madhavi Divan assisted the court as amicus curiae and in turn was assisted by advocate Liz Mathew.
A Calcutta High Court bench comprising Justice Chittaranjan Dash and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen had delivered the judgment that advised young girls and boys to rein in sexual urges, while acquitting a man who was convicted for raping a minor girl with whom he had a ‘romantic affair’ and subsequently married her.
The high court had voiced concerns over the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act) conflating consensual sexual acts among adolescents with sexual abuse and hence called for decriminalising consensual sexual acts, involving adolescents above 16 years.
Stating that the sexual urge is created by our own action, the high court judgment had said: “Sex in adolescents is normal but sexual urge or arousal of such urge is dependent on some action by the individual, maybe a man or woman. Therefore, sexual urges are not at all normal and normative. If we stop some action(s), arousal of sexual urge … ceases to be normal.”
The HC had proposed a ‘duty/obligation-based approach’ to the issue, and suggested some duties for both the adolescent females and males.
For adolescent females it had suggested that it is the duty/obligation of every female adolescent to protect her right to integrity of her body, protect her dignity and self-worth, ‘control sexual urge/urges as in the eyes of society she is the loser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes’.