Activists said they were “appalled and outraged”.
India’s Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, pictured, asked a convicted rapist if he would marry his victim to make amends. Credit:President’s Secretariat, India
“Your proposal of marriage as an amicable solution to settle the case of rape of a minor girl is worse than atrocious and insensitive for it deeply erodes the right of victims to seek justice,” the open letter published Tuesday said.
Bobde has not responded.
Sex with minors is a crime in India under the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offenses Act of 2012. Mandatory sentences range from 10 years in jail up to life imprisonment and bail is rarely granted.
According to court documents, the families reached an agreement that the man would marry the girl when she turned 18. The man later reneged on his promise and married someone else. In 2019, when the family filed a case against the man, a district court granted him anticipatory bail.
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However, the Bombay High Court quashed that order, writing a scathing critique of the lower court.
“Such an approach is a clear indication that the learned judge utterly lacks competence,” the court wrote.
The accused man then approached the Supreme Court. Bobde and the other two members of the bench granted him a four-week protection from arrest.
More than 4,000 women signed the letter demanding the chief justice’s resignation, including Anuradha Banerji, an activist with the women’s rights group Saheli.
“When the chief justice of India makes these archaic and patriarchal comments, it signals the deeper rot in both the judicial system as well as in the society,” Banerji said. “Millions of young girls are going to know that their values are in marriageability and not in their personhood.”
In a separate case, according to the letter and media reports, Bobde appeared to condone rape in the context of a consensual relationship.
“When two people are living as husband and wife, however brutal the husband is, can the act of sexual intercourse between them be called rape?” Bobde asked.
The New York Times
National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732
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