CJI’s Misdemenour… the Proverbial Foot in The Mouth

It certainly does not behove a person of the stature of CJI K.G.Balakrishnan to advocate such a hollow suggestion that not only insults the dignity of a woman but pushes her to the position she held in the medieval era. It actually is devoid of any legal sense of justification that is obviously expected from such a legal luminary. It reflects the mindset of a Panchayat level where education, human sentiments and status of a woman hardly exist, rather than emanating from someone who is experienced to understand the plight of the victim and her horrendous journey to justice.

The statement made by the first Dalit Chief Justice of India that due regard should be given to the wishes of a rape victim if she chooses to marry the rapist or have the baby conceived as a result of the crime is hardly in line with what must be construed as a progressive measure in the affirmative direction of the status of the victims – be it in dalit, oppressed, backwards or general category. That the good Chief Justice should have gone down his memory lane to rekindle the experiences of the unprivileged in the society and the injustice his community still suffers, he would have been balanced in his emotional judicial activism.

One need not be an angel to fathom what the first and foremost wish of a rape victim would be. Rather than justice, pushing her to accept the humiliation and live with it throughout in suffocation is killing her not once but making her live each day in denial of self-respect and human dignity. Barring a remote fraction of any genuine hit, this would in fact license the rapists to take the shelter of this gory crime in fulfilling their nefarious wishes. It would be perhaps a cake walk to coerce the victim after being forcibly physical with her in the backdrop of socio-cultural-economical factors. It would in fact be a step forward to legalise the man who has outraged her modesty and encourage the society to actually rape women at the drop of a hat in order to escape the severe sections of IPC by marrying the victim.

Rape is surely not something that society should gloat over or for judiciary to undermine the fundamental rights of equality, gender self-respect and the right to live with dignity as enshrined in our constitution.

What is least expected from a dalit holding the top legal post is to refine reforms , speed up the process of justice to improve the lot of his clan in particular and the plight of victims in general.

Rape is a stigma to be cured rather to glorify with an emotional mask.