ridiculous....

Discussion in 'The ChitChat Lounge' started by angel_of_sin, Apr 8, 2009.

  1. angel_of_sin

    angel_of_sin bassist.....

    read and comment....

    A Delhi High Court order reduces the sentence of a person convicted of rape because he cleared the civil services examination.
    AN order of a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court on February 9 reducing the sentence of a person convicted of rape because he had cleared the civil services examination has generated a controversy. The court set aside the conviction for the offences punishable under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (for abetment to suicide) while sustaining the conviction on offences punishable under 376 IPC (for rape).
    The order said: “Considering the totality of the circumstances and noting that the appellant has suffered incarceration for five years and six months and would be entitled to remissions on account of his good conduct in jail, noting further that the appellant has redeemed himself in jail evidenced by the fact that he took the civil services examinations and qualified for being appointed to the Indian Administrative Services [IAS], we are of the opinion that custodial sentence already suffered by the appellant would meet the ends of justice as a requisite punishment.” The appellant was ordered to be set free.
    The court exonerated him from the charges of abetment to suicide because there was evidence of some “participative act” by the victim. The court held that there was no evidence that the appellant had forced himself on the girl or that he had compelled her to have *** with another person.
    “Instead of focussing on the gravity and heinousness of the crime involved, sections within the judiciary have found it more relevant to reflect on the moral character of the victim, her alleged promiscuity as well as the social and economic background of the perpetrators,” said an activist.
    More than a hundred concerned citizens and also women’s organisations have written to the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court to review the order. The signatories have said that “merely qualifying for the IAS cannot be a ground for reduction of sentence in a crime as heinous as rape…. The stated reason is in fact a class-bias towards educated persons.”
    The incident happened in April 2003. She was 21. The accused, Ashok Kumar Rai, also known as Amit, 29, was her chemistry tutor. The girl committed suicide by consuming sulfa tablets. Detailing in a note the reasons why she took the extreme measure, she wrote: “He enticed me with a promise of marriage…. I was so trapped by him that neither was I in a position to do anything against him or tell anyone else of the same.”
    She added that he had threatened to defame her and compelled her to “submit my body before another person as he had to seek some favour from that person.... I am harassed by his atrocities.... He has ruined me… has not left me in a position to show my face to society…. Therefore, being harassed by the atrocities of Amit and to save myself from being defamed, I am committing suicide. It is only Amit who is responsible for my death.”
    The trial court held Amit guilty on two counts, abetment to suicide and rape. He was sentenced to life and ordered to pay a fine of Rs.5,000. The matter went on appeal to the Delhi High Court.
    “All of us feel that it sets a very retrograde precedent. Lower courts will definitely take a cue from these kinds of judgments that focus more on the character of the victim rather than the nature of the crime itself. It also raises several issues including that of legal reform,” said Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association.
    Significantly, excerpts from the order clearly show that the judges had considered the exploitative nature of the relationship. Yet this was not factored in while reducing the sentence for rape.
    The order observed that “a perusal of the suicide note showed that [the victim] was lured to the house of the appellant on the pretext of helping her with extra classes. She was coaxed into friendship and something more. Obviously, the more has to be a promise of a matrimonial bond. She was given a stupefying drug and under influence thereof indulged in a promiscuous relationship…. The suicide note establishes that the intention of the appellant was to use the unfortunate girl and never marry her…. The proposed matrimonial bond was nothing but a bait to obtain [her] consent to have a physical relationship with the appellant.” The order noted that the victim, at the age of 21, was mature enough to understand the “moral worth of her acts”, while hardly commenting on the responsibility of the 29-year-old man.
    Supreme Court lawyer Kirti Singh said it was clear that the accused was awarded life imprisonment after the girl committed suicide. The punishment for rape was increased, she said, after a concerted struggle by women’s organisations. “In this case, they have taken a very technical view of abetment of suicide, reducing it to a mockery by holding that there was no evidence that the accused gave the sulfa tablets to the deceased,” she said. “After holding him guilty of rape, it is unexplainable as to how the case can be dissected apart and an order passed not holding the man guilty of the charge.”
    Kirti Singh said that to treat rape like some instance of indiscipline where a person can “redeem” himself by passing an examination was tantamount to trivialising the heinousness of the crime itself. Other women activists such as Jyotsna Chatterji of the Joint Women’s Programme and Kalpana David of the Young Women’s Christian Association also stressed that rape was rape and that a rapist ought to go through the entire process laid down under the law.
    Indu Agnihotri, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, said that never would an instance of abetment of suicide be proved if evidence had to be given that a “rope or poison was actually supplied by a second party to a victim”. What the judges should have noted was the victimisation of the girl as evidenced in the suicide note, she said. “Promiscuous”, “participative act” and so on, she said, were loaded terms which hardly indicated sympathy for the victim.
    The activists say that perhaps to indicate that the girl was “habituated to intercourse”, the post-mortem report was quoted as saying that the “vagina of the deceased admitted three fingers comfortably and the hymen showed old healed scars”. The defence counsel too pointed out this in his arguments, and for some reason this happens to be an important factoid in rape cases. “But what was more relevant was whether she was induced into a relationship under the false pretext of marriage and the consequent events that led her to suicide rather than the fact that she was “habituated to ***”.
    Kirti Singh said that if the order was not reviewed, then a special leave petition would be filed in the Supreme Court.
    One of the major thrusts of campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s for reforms in rape laws was on “redefining of consent”. The campaign that began after the custodial rape of a 16-year-old tribal girl in Maharashtra in 1974 led to the amendment of the Evidence Act to state that if a victim says that she did not consent to the ***ual intercourse, the court shall presume that she did not consent. The policemen who raped the girl were acquitted on the grounds that she was habituated to ***ual intercourse and that she had eloped with her boyfriend and hence had consented to intercourse with the policemen as well.
    A crucial demand that arose in the context of the case was that a woman’s history and general character should not be used as evidence in a rape trial. In 1989, however, the Supreme Court reduced the sentence from ten years to five in a custodial rape case.
    Women’s organisations and legal activists feel that there is an increasing tendency in the judiciary to display gender and class biases in judgments. On February 27, a metropolitan magistrate in a city court held that an adulterous wife could not seek relief against her husband under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA). The magistrate held that “the PWDVA was enacted to provide speedy and expedient remedy to protect hapless victims of pervasive acts of violence occurring within the family and not to give the woman complete immunity from getting away from any kind of a misdeed…. To enjoy the benefits of the provision, the lady must come to court with clean hands, as she should not be guilty of adultery.”
    The onus of morality and the upkeep of the moral order, sadly, continue to be the responsibility of women alone, with the definition of morality rooted in notions of chastity, purity and so on.
     
  2. angel_of_sin

    angel_of_sin bassist.....

    furthur info:-

    by order of supreme court the above said order and declared null and void..........
     
  3. horsesmouth

    horsesmouth Active Member

    Aye.......
    I'd read tht in DNA too. the guy cleared some exam in jail, n his sentence was reduced

    but as regards the whole story, this 'habituated to ***' thing was too rotten.....and shows the most negative side of this society which, at one side asks couple not to go hand in hand, and other times, lets monsters like these get away by mocking the law and women.....

    SAD STATE.....
     
  4. distorted

    distorted satan

    1.the girl ws an idiot coz she thot he wud marry him. u dont expect such senseless behaviour frm a 21 yr old.
    2. She ws hungry fr ***. If she had a desire to marry, she must hv waited fr marriage before getting physical.
    3. Amit ws smart enuf to fool her (thou i dont think he wud hv done this, evn the girl wud hv wanted it)
    4. decision1 taken by the court shows gender bias, being sympathetic fr the girl.
     
    alpha1 likes this.
  5. horsesmouth

    horsesmouth Active Member

    yea, dats ryt 21 yrs old n such foolishness!
    but still, tht guy, though cant be charged for rape, but abettment of suicide, n its a sad state.....

    n also, he told her to entertain some other guy for a favour of his else he'd defame her....tats a crime certainly....blackmailing

    n i guess the gal dint lie in her suicide note atleast...
     
  6. distorted

    distorted satan

    I wont consider him guilty fr abetment of suicide... It is the girl's responsibility... If she is strong willed enuf to have premarital ***, she must be ready to face the consequences.
    i agree, he blackmailed her, but she comitted the mistake at first place. You cant hold anybdy else responsible fr the consequences. Kind of vicarious responsibility.
     
  7. spydra

    spydra New Member

    yes, how can you someone who has secks with you to marry you?

    Welcome to the 11th century. Please grab a woman by the hair and drag her to your cave.

    Perhaps you haven't seen that he was her teacher and thus in a position to influence her. This is seen as far worse a crime than a regular incident such as this.


    True but it's attitudes like yours that ensure that laws biased in favour of women need to exist.
     
  8. angel_of_sin

    angel_of_sin bassist.....

    11th century BC or AD????

    Yes he was the girls teacher but the girl should have been intelligent enuf to knw wat she was getting into....


    And finally da issue was bout court giving such fcuked up decisions just coz sumone cleared an exam.........not bout da member of IGT's mentality...........
     
  9. distorted

    distorted satan

    Influence a 21yr old.... ws she a retard???
    Or r u a retard?

    So dat women can fool guys lyk u anytym they want.... U r typical chyut chatu... Uh, I meant a pussy licker... Raste pe aja bhai, ye extra sympathy dikhakr kuch nhi milne ka, sirf apna katwayega. beware of the 'psychic vampires', sympathy usko dikha who needs it, who is downtrodden, women stand by yr side, they r equal, they dont need it...

    N sry brother, got it off topic...
    As far the court is concerned, i have utmost believe in the indian system of jurisdiction...
    they tuk absolute ****iiyamatic decisions pure case mein. Hopeless.
     
  10. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    Spydra, lets get all the biases sorted out.
    1. Sex and marraige are two different things. I don't know if you are a girl or a guy. But both the genders have urges which are satisfied by an act of Sexual intercourse.
    Marriage is a promise/commitment that this act would be done only with your spouse.
    I think you need to understand both are quite different entities.

    2. What is cave man in this? You probably meant to say that not having premarital sex, or waiting till marriage is archaic.
    Good. I also agree. But then why don't you also agree to the point that I made above?

    3. Regarding him being teacher. Don't you think there is a strong possibility of the girl harboring a crush for his teacher? I have seen so many such cases, that I cannot refute this possibility.

    4. Whatever it is, admit it that laws are in favor of females. Do you have any idea about the divorce laws? In todays world even if the woman is independent financially, the guy is supposed to support her household.!!
     
  11. spydra

    spydra New Member


    Absolutely agree. However, you also have to agree that the two are often connected by this strange emotion you call "love". If you "love" someone, you tend to want to have *** with them (though you might also want to have *** otherwise). Society tends to associate love with marriage so I think that's the slight connecting bond (even thought that's not technically nescessary). How loose or tight the connection is depends on the individual involved.

    Having lived in a country like ours for 21 years, you can see why she would expect to get married after this. What distorted seems to be talking about is the uber-modern upper class female. The truth is casual *** is more common in the upper and lower classes. The middle class is the only one which gets caught up with hangups like she did. The rich don't conform to society and society does not care what the lower class does.

    yes, we agree here too.


    Of course this is true. Not knowing anything about the people involved, I would still believe this most likely to be true. I know 3 couples who used to be student-teacher which shows that there are tendencies there. However, being a teacher implies a moral responsibility of sorts which is why there are laws pertaining to this in most professional setups (offices, schools etc.). This is called taking advantage of a position of power (even though the advantage might be taken either side).

    It is also important to realize that age does not mean maturity. An immature person might always be susceptible to being taken advantage of.


    As for blaming the girl for this, shouldn't you also be blaming the guy for the situation he is in? As a 29 year old, he should be aware of laws and how skewed they are in favor of girls.


    You also seem to be talking about the uber-modern, independent modern woman. Most of India is not a part of this category which is why such laws are needed. I did acknowledge that there is a bias and a very dangerous one at that. On one hand, you have women who actually need them and on the other, you have the clever modern women using it to dominate men thus reversing an age old trend. Perhaps it's justice in a warped way?

    It's something like reservations. Reservations attempt to reverse centuries of crimes and oppression against certain people. It's a good idea to the extent where the deserving people from these classes who lack opportunity get a boost. 49%? No.


    The execution of the ideas might be wrong but don't blame the ideas for it.



    I'm not even going to try and respond to distorted because he seems to rant and cannot spell.
     
  12. distorted

    distorted satan

    Trying to get shoposhisticated, eh?
    Dont mind my words mate, just came out of aggression, no ill will against u brother... But dont assume dat girls r alwys innocent n need help... N as u spk of the crime comitted by the tutor, as he tuk undue advantage of his position of trust... he did nt... He just used a bait, allurement of marrying her, which any odr guy cud hv done n wud hv got the girl... Its just the girl tuk the risk dat he myt marry her, fr the sake of her physical satisfaction.. Wen he refused she lost it.
     
  13. spydra

    spydra New Member

    where did I say that? just read what I've written as a reply to alpha. This is why Im going to avoid replying to you.
     
  14. horsesmouth

    horsesmouth Active Member

    I agree.......gals hav their own life to protect, its not as if that guy locked her n raped her, she agreed...so its not criminal offence
    but morally the guy did the wrong thing, as did the gal, but Indian society wud neva've let tht gal live properly, so she gave up, its not wrong either

    the irony is, nobody seems to be wrong at each stage, and from other point-of-view, every1's wrong.....though no way criminal
     
  15. angel_of_sin

    angel_of_sin bassist.....

    wat was criminal was da girl mentioning da reason of committing suicide...........da reason was da guy........da guy even bought her sulpha tablets.....he should have been convicted under section 306 of IPC...(abetment of suicide).........
     
  16. thehundredthone

    thehundredthone Well-Known Member

    The old boy vs. girl argument will go on forever.

    She was stupid to end her life for the sake of saving herself from "defamation" and he was stupid to think that she wouldn't take an extreme step, after all that had transpired.

    So why reduce the sentence just because he cleared an exam? That is the crux of the matter. All other technicalities aside, that is just bullshit.

    Maybe Hannibal Lecter should have been Indian eh? Although I guess Indian meat is a little too lean for him :)
     
  17. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    So you are not ruling out the case of s3x sans love.
     
  18. spydra

    spydra New Member

    Of course not. Heaven forbid.
     
  19. spydra

    spydra New Member

    I think I saw someone agree a few posts ago that she didn't have a choice and which is why she wasn't at fault. It's posts like that which actually depress me. It is, however, a reflection of our hypocrisy.


    Not anymore, it isn't. We had an Indian version, didn't we? Nithari?
     
  20. thehundredthone

    thehundredthone Well-Known Member

    Lecter would just have to clear some random exam and he'd walk out of jail, which shouldn't be hard for someone with his intellect. That is what is happening here right? The passing of the Indian services exam means your moral and character is good.

    And Nithari, he doesn't have the panache.
     

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