Family honour and fear of social stigma make Indian women “extremely reluctant” to raise their voice against their molesters, the Supreme Court observed on Friday while finally rendering justice to Ruchika Girhotra.
The apex court confirmed the guilt of her molester S.P.S. Rathore, a former Haryana State police chief, 27 years after the incident.
A teenaged Ms. Girhotra committed suicide in 1993, nearly three years after she was assaulted by Rathore in a tennis club office.
The Supreme Court judgment evokes the personal trauma and “embarrassment” a helpless 15-year-old girl would have felt to narrate the instance of her humiliation to her parents. A bench of Justices Gopala V. Gowda and R.K. Agarwal lauded the courage she showed to expose her powerful adversary, which allowed the courts to bring him to justice.
“In the normal course of human conduct, this unmarried minor girl would not like to give publicity to the traumatic experience she underwent,” Justice Agrawal wrote in a 46-page judgment.
Justice Agrawal wrote how the victim would have mustered the courage to overpower her feeling of shame and natural inclination not to talk to anyone for the sake of family name and honour.
Not every victim of molestation would have the courage to complain about her molester, and thus, the judgment held that it was up to the courts to not “let accused go scot-free merely on flimsy grounds”.
“There is a devastating increase in cases relating to crime against women in the world and our country is also no exception to it,” the apex court observed.
It warned that molestation is a charge which is easy to make and very difficult to rebut. So, the courts must also carefully sift through evidence before any conviction.
“A careful approach has to be adopted by the court while dealing with the case alleging outrage of modesty,” the judgment held. Confirming Rathore's guilt, the Supreme Court however reduced his jail sentence to the period already undergone owing to his advanced age and physical condition.
