The Kerala High Court has ruled that a woman’s clothing cannot be a justification for insulting her modesty or an excuse to exonerate the accused who committed such a crime. According to Justice Kauser Edappagath, it is incorrect to think that women dress primarily to attract attention from males and that objectifying women based solely on their clothing is permissible.
A lady shouldn’t be classified based just on her appearance. Women cannot ever put up with norms that classify them solely on their appearance and facial expressions. It is impossible to believe that women dress just to get attention from males. Simply because a lady was dressed provocatively does not mean that she was sexually attacked.
‘An accused person cannot be exonerated from the allegation of insulting a woman’s modesty by the victim’s sexually suggestive attire. The freedom to dress whatever one chooses is a logical extension of the right to personal freedom recognised by the Indian Constitution. Even if a lady wears a sexually suggestive outfit, this does not grant a man the right to offend her modesty’,the judge stated in his judgement dated October 13th. The court made the point while striking from a bail order issued by a sessions court comments claiming that the victim’s suggestive apparel would prevent charges of molestation from being brought.
‘Civic’ Chandran, a writer and social activist, was granted anticipatory release in a sexual harassment case, and the sessions court made this comment. The judge upheld the social activist’s relief while throwing out the controversial comments, stating that the complainant-victim was an educated woman who was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the delay of more than two and a half years in filing the complaint after the alleged incident.
The prosecution also claimed that the investigation was nearly complete, therefore the court concluded that, given the facts and circumstances of the case, ‘custodial questioning of the accused does not appear to be appropriate’. It claimed that Chandran had not been subjected to enough constraints by the sessions court when granting him relief and ordered that, in the event of his arrest, he be freed on bail after posting a bond for Rs. 1 lakh with two acceptable sureties for the same sum.
The high court also ordered him to fully cooperate with the investigation, appear before the investigating officer every Saturday between 10 and 11, as well as whenever the police request him to, refrain from attempting to contact any of the prosecution witnesses or tamper with evidence, and refrain from leaving Kerala without the lower court’s permission. With these instructions, the judge dismissed the state’s and the complainant’s arguments opposing Chandran’s 74-year-old anticipatory bail.
The Sessions Court stated in its ruling of August 12 that the woman’s ‘sexually suggestive attire’ was not a prerequisite to the sexual harassment offence, which caused a great deal of uproar. Chandran has been accused of sexual harassment in two occasions, one by a writer who is a member of a Scheduled Tribe tribe who claims Chandran harassed her during a book display here in April. The other was from a young author who accused him of sexual harassment at a local book fair in February 2020. The same sessions court granted him anticipatory bail in both circumstances.
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