Crime Today News
The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Allahabad High Court’s recent order, which said that acts of grabbing a child’s breasts, breaking the string of her pyjama and attempting to drag her beneath a culvert do not constitute the offence of attempt to rape or rape, Live Law reported.
The matter was heard by a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Augustine George Masih.
The bench had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter on Tuesday, a day after another bench of Justices Bela Trivedi and Prasanna B Varale dismissed a public interest litigation petition filed against the High Court order.
The bench of Gavai and Masih said that the High Court’s observations were “shocking”, Live Law reported.
“We are at pains to say that some of the observations made in the impugned judgement, particularly paras 21, 24 and 26, depict a total lack of sensitivity on the part of the author of the judgement,” the bench was quoted as saying.
The Supreme Court noted that the High Court had delivered the ruling after reserving it for nearly four months, not on the spot, which meant that the judge had given the verdict after consideration and application of mind, Live Law reported.
The bench stayed the High Court order saying that the observations were “totally unknown to the tenets of law and depict total insensitivity and inhuman approach”.
The observations under scrutiny were made by High Court Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra on March 17 while altering charges against two men accused of attempting to rape a 11-year-old girl in 2021.
The two men were originally summoned by a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj district to stand trial under charges of rape under the Indian Penal Code and attempted rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. They, however, challenged the summons, arguing that even if the complaint was taken at face value, it did not constitute an offence of attempt to rape.
However, the High Court had directed them to be tried for assault with intent to disrobe under the Indian Penal Code, which carries a lesser punishment, and aggravated sexual assault under the POCSO Act.
In their police complaint, the child’s family had alleged that the two persons had offered her a lift and then attempted to rape her. However, a few passersby intervened and rescued her, which forced the two men to flee.
Mishra had noted that the specific allegation against one of the men was that he tried to drag the girl beneath a culvert and broke the string of her pyjamas.
“It is also not stated by witnesses that due to this act of the accused the victim got naked or got undressed,” the judge said. “There is no allegation that accused tried to commit penetrative sexual assault against the victim.”
“In order to bring out a charge of attempt to rape the prosecution must establish that it had gone beyond the stage of preparation,” Mishra had said. “The difference between preparation and actual attempt to commit an offence consists chiefly in the greater degree of determination.”
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