Sunday, 31 May 2009

Is justice this blind? Recent rulings by Indian Courts seem to suggest so


- The Times of India - 31/5/09

'Sikh women dont pluck brows': Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Saturday ruled that the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) was fully justified in refusing to admit a young girl to a Sikh minority institution because she had violated a fundamental tenet of the religion by plucking her eyebrows.

In an endorsement of the hardline stand of the high priests of Sikhism the ruling leans towards a text-based, more conservative definition of who is a true Sikh. In a 152-page order, a full bench made up of justices JS Khehar, Jasbir Singh and Ajay Kumar Mittal said it was essential for a Sikh to be unshorn.

Gurleen Kaur and others had challenged their denial of admission to an MBBS course at the Sri Guru Ram Das
Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Amritsar, a Sikh minority institution. The SGPC had ruled that Gurleen was not a ‘‘true Sikh as she was plucking her eyebrows.’’

The court said the requisite of maintaining Sikh ‘swarup’ (appearance) was a permissible precondition for admitting students under the Sikh minority community quota. The SGPC runs two medical colleges, two engineering institutes, one polytechnic, 40 degree colleges and 150 schools, most of them in Punjab.

- CNN-IBN - 19/5/09

"If your wife wants you to see this side, see this side. If she wants you to see the other side, do obey her," - Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has a recipe for a successful marriage, more so for men: obey your wife and rule the world.

"Bibi joh boltee hai woh sunno (Listen to whatever your wife says). We all listen," a vacation bench of Justice Markandeya Katju and Justice Deepak Verma observed while hearing a lawsuit by Indian Force officer Deepak Kumar, who had complained that his estranged wife Manisha had ruined him and his family by implicating them in false criminal cases including sodomy.

"Hum sab bhuktbhogi hai (We all have undergone that experience)," the bench observed.

"If your wife wants you to see this side, see this side. If she wants you to see the other side, do obey her," said Katju, adding: "One who obeys his wife rules the world."

- DNA - 30/4/09

Woman can't gang-rape because it is conceptually inconceivable: rules SC

Can a woman be convicted of rape? The Rajasthan government thinks so. But the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a plea by the government to convict a woman of 'gang rape', saying such a thing was "inconceivable".

A fast-track court in Alwar, Rajasthan, had acquitted two persons, including a woman named Kamla, of being party to a 'gang rape' committed by a minor. They were present when the minor committed the crime, the court said, but ruled that the woman's participation in the crime was impossible.

Unanimous that a woman would not have common intention or participate in gang rape, the judges said, "It is conceptually inconceivable."

- Outlook - 15/2/09

'No woman would allow her husband rape another girl in her presence' because it is improbable: Delhi Court

In Indian society, no woman would allow her husband rape another girl in her presence, a Delhi court has said while acquitting a couple of rape and abetment charges and terming the girl's complaint as "improbable".

Trashing allegations of a girl that she was ravished several times by the accused with the active connivance of his wife, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Surinder Kumar Mishra observed "No wife in our Indian society would allow her husband to rape a girl in her presence."

"The testimony of the prosecutrix (girl) does not inspire any confidence and her subsequent conduct makes it improbable that such an incident ever took place," the court said. It acquitted Salim and his spouse Saira Bano, residents of a north-east Delhi locality, of charges of kidnapping, rape, abetment and criminal intimidation under the IPC.

The accused couple was arrested following the complaint, lodged on June 21, 2006, of their neighbour that she was sexually assaulted several times during illegal confinement. Later, she testified that Saira had forced her to have sex with her husband when she visited the couple's house in neighbourhood on June 17. They also threatened her and cautioned her against disclosing it to anybody.

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