Chief Justice says rape hearing misreported: ‘Have highest respect for women’
The comments — on International Women’s Day — come in the wake of recent criticism against the Supreme Court that it had asked a rape accused in another case whether he would marry the victim, who was a minor when the crime was committed.
FollowNew Delhi: Chief Justice of India, Sharad A Bobde, today said the comments he made during a hearing of a rape case last week were completely misreported to imply disrespect for women.
The bench of CJI Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said last week's news reports and activists quoted out of context on its “will you marry her” query to create an unnecessary controversy and tarnish the image of SC and its Judges.
The bench said it had asked the petitioner man, in the context of the case, whether he would marry the complainant and had not asked him to “go and marry her”. CJI Bobde said, “the proceedings before the court in that case were completely misreported”.
Reacting to the controversy that flared up after his comments attracted criticism from a section of lawyers as well as rights groups, Justice Bobde pointed out that his questions to the lawyer for the accused were in the facts of that particular case but there was misreporting by the media.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who was present during the proceedings, supported the CJI, saying the court’s power during the hearing on March 1 were completely in sync with Section 165 of the Evidence Act, which empowered judges to ask questions in order to discover or to obtain proper proof of relevant facts in a case.
Mehta said that the court’s questions were justified in the facts of that case but the comments were widely reported out of the context. At this, the CJI said: “Our reputation is always at the hands of the Bar.”
The observations by the bench were made while it was hearing a case of a 14-year-old pregnant rape victim seeking a nod to abort the foetus of almost 26 weeks.
