A view of the Supreme Court (SC) of India.
| Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
The Supreme Court on Tuesday (August 20, 2024) set aside “unwarranted” observations made by a Calcutta High Court Bench in a POCSO case which even advised adolescent girls to “control their sexual urges”.
A Bench headed by Justice A.S. Oka, which had taken suo motu cognisance of the observations made by the High Court Bench in a judgment in October 2023 had said the case also raised the question of “the right to privacy of adolescents”.
Restoring the conviction in the POCSO case, the Bench appointed an expert committee to fine-tune various aspects of reporting a crime under POCSO.
During the hearing, the Bench had termed the observations “highly objectionable and completely unwarranted” and an affront to the rights of dignity and privacy of adolescents.
Justice Oka had orally remarked that judges were “not expected to express personal views or preach” on the Bench.
The State of West Bengal had separately moved to the Supreme Court.
The Calcutta High Court had also called for the decriminalisation of consensual sexual acts involving adolescents above 16 years.
A High Court Bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi Sen had observed in its October 18, 2023 judgment that it was the “duty/obligation of every female adolescent to; protect her right to integrity of her body; protect her dignity and self-worth; thrive for overall development of her self transcending gender barriers; control sexual urge/urges as in the eyes of the society she is the loser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes; protect her right to autonomy of her body and her privacy”.
For male adolescents, the High Court Bench had said they should “respect the aforesaid duties of a young girl or woman and he should train his mind to respect a woman, her self worth, her dignity and privacy, and right to autonomy of her body”.
“We do not want our adolescents to do anything that will push them from the dark to the darker side of life,” the October 2023 verdict had said.
