'One Has To Be Careful’: SC rebukes Allahabad HC over ‘rape victim invited trouble’

Highlights

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised the Allahabad High Court for its remarks against a college student who alleged rape that “she...

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticised the Allahabad High Court for its remarks against a college student who alleged rape that “she herself invited trouble and was also responsible for the same”, saying judges have to be “careful” while dealing with such cases.

The Allahabad High Court made the remarks on March 11 while granting bail to the accused in the rape case.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and A G Masih assembled to hear another case in which it had taken suo motu cognisance of a March 17, 2025, order of the Allahabad HC which said that grabbing a girl’s breasts and breaking the drawstrings of her pyjama were “not sufficient” to hold the charges of rape or attempt to rape.

Justice Gavai said, “There is another order now by another judge. Yes, bail can be granted. But what is this discussion that ‘she herself invited trouble etc’.

One has to be careful when saying such things, especially on this side (judicial).”

Hearing the case on March 26, the Supreme Court termed the comments “insensitive” and “inhuman” and stayed the HC order. “In normal circumstances, we are slow in granting stay at this stage. But since the observations appearing in paragraphs 21, 24, and 26 are totally unknown to the canons of law and depict totally insensitive and inhuman approach, we are inclined to stay the said observations,” the bench had said.

The March 11 order of the Allahabad High Court relates to the case which happened on September 21, 2024. According to police sources, the woman, a postgraduate student in Noida, had gone to attend a music performance in South Delhi with her friends. She met the accused, who was known to one of her friends, there.

In her complaint, she said the accused, also a student, told her he would drop her back to Noida but took her to an apartment in Gurgaon, where he allegedly raped her. The woman filed a complaint at the police station the next day. The accused was arrested under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Section 64 (punishment for rape). Contesting the rape allegations, the counsel for the accused had claimed that it was consensual.

Granting bail to the accused, the High Court judge said, “Having heard learned counsel for the parties and examined the matter in its entirety, I find that it is not in dispute that victim and applicant both are major. The victim is a student of MA, hence, she was competent enough to understand the morality and significance of her act as disclosed by her in the FIR. This court is of the view that even if the allegation of the victim is accepted as true, then it can also be concluded that she herself invited trouble and was also responsible for the same. A similar stand has been taken by the victim in her statement”.