SC on Calcutta HC’s judgement on asking adolescent girls to control sexual urges

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday criticised a Calcutta High Court judgement of December last year which stated that adolescent girls must control their sexual urges instead of giving in to two minutes of pleasure.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said the observations in the judgment were “problematic”.

“Every paragraph (of the judgement) is problematic. We have marked all the paragraphs,” the bench remarked.

Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for the State of West Bengal, told the bench that an appeal has been filed against the judgment. The appeal was listed for hearing today but the bench before which the case was listed did not sit.

The apex court said the appeal will have to be heard along with present suo motu writ petition and it asked the Registry to list both the matters together for next Friday.

Last month, the apex court took suo motu cognisance of High Court judgement and issued notice to the State government and others.

It had said that some parts of the judgment “were highly objectionable and completely unwarranted”. “In an appeal against conviction, the High Court was called upon to decide only the merits of the appeal and nothing else. 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,” it had observed.

Senior advocate Madhavi Divan was appointed by the top court as amicus curiae to assist the court and advocate Liz Mathew to assist the amicus. A division bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi Sen of the High Court had 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’.

The High Court had voiced concerns over the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act conflating consensual acts among adolescents with sexual abuse and hence called for decriminalising consensual sexual acts involving adolescents above 16 years.

The bench had opined that sexual urge is created by our own action.

“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 urge is not at all normal and normative. If we stop some action(s), arousal of sexual urge ... ceases to be normal,” the judgement reads.

It had, therefore, proposed a ‘duty/obligation based approach’ to the issue, and suggested some duties for both the adolescent females and males. For adolescent females it 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 looser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes. (ANI)

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