Supreme Court overturns controversial Calcutta High Court ruling asking girls to ‘control their sexual urges’

New Delhi: He Supreme Court On Tuesday, the Calcutta High Court overturned a controversial Supreme Court judgment ordering teenage girls to control their sexual urges. The Supreme Court decision, which proposed a “duty-based approach” for teenage girls and suggested different responsibilities for teenage girls and boys, had drawn widespread criticism.

A bench of judges, Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, criticised the Calcutta High Court’s comments as “lengthy, objectionable, irrelevant, preachy and unwarranted”. The Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter in December 2023, expressing concern that the High Court’s observations sent wrong signals about the behaviour of adolescents and their legal responsibilities.

The controversy arose from a case in which a division bench of the Calcutta High Court, headed by Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi Sen, had acquitted a youth convicted of raping a minor girl with whom he had been having a “romantic affair.” The High Court had held that the girl’s actions had contributed to the incident, a stance that sparked a significant backlash.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court reinstated the defendant’s conviction and announced that a committee of experts will determine his sentence. The judges also said that the court also explained in detail how they should draft their sentences.