NEW DELHI: Delhi High Court Monday made it clear that what a girl or a woman wears is her choice and faulted an attempt by the defence lawyers who linked a woman’s sexual harassment to her choice of wearing jeans.The court said that any suggestion that a girl wearing jeans might “corrupt young boys” reflects a deeply troubling and unacceptable mindset.“What a girl or woman chooses to wear is a matter of her personal choice. Neither her neighbours, nor society, nor the accused, nor the counsel appearing in a court of law has any right to dictate her clothing. It is simply none of their concern,” Justice Chandrasekharan Sudha said. She convicted the man of sexually harassing the woman in 2013.“The answer does not lie in controlling the clothes of girls and women. Parents and society must instead teach their children to control their conduct, respect personal boundaries and treat every human with dignity, whether at home or outside,” the court added.The woman alleged that the accused, her neighbour, stalked her, made sexually coloured remarks and touched her inappropriately. The man was acquitted by a trial court in 2014. The state challenged this acquittal. Justice Sudha noted that the cross-examination in the case was “wholly irrelevant” and “improper”, and ought to have been disallowed at the outset by the trial judge. It took exception to the “line of cross-examination and arguments” adopted by the counsel for the accused in the trial. The questions put to the woman included her “western” style of dressing, religion of the people in the locality and their objections to her clothing, the high court said.The trial court, while acquitting the man, noted that he and 50 residents of the locality had written a complaint to police alleging that the girl indulged in immoral activities and wore clothes that had an adverse effect on boys living in the area. The court faulted police for not acting against such a complaint.Asked why questions concerning the religion of the people in the locality and the clothes worn by the woman had been put to her, the def-ence counsel had submit-ted: “Janab, har mohalle mein ek reeti riwaz hota hain jinko sabko manna pade-ga (your honour, every locality has its traditions and customs which everyone has to comply with).”Rejecting this line of questioning, the high court said that “neither religion, nor local custom, can be used to justify unlawful conduct or impose restrictions upon the personal choices of a woman.”Trial courts must be vigilant in such matters so that “questions based on a woman’s clothing, character, lifestyle, religion or personal choices, unless strictly relevant to an issue arising in the case, must not be permitted,” Justice Sudha said.The woman’s religion, the religion of the residents of the locality, and the clothes worn by her had no connection to the crime, the court added. The attitude of the accused appeared to be “don’t pretend to be virtuous/chaste, I know what you are, meaning thereby that she is a woman of easy virtue and, therefore, he has every right to mentally and physically harass her,” the high court observed.The court then mentioned that “a woman of easy virtue is entitled to privacy and no one can invade her privacy as and when he likes. So also, it is not open to any and every person to violate her person as and when he wishes. She is entitled to protect her person if there is an attempt to violate it against her wish. She is equally entitled to the protection of law,” Justice Sudha said.The high court, however, said that Pocso charges cannot be invoked in the case as the prosecution had failed to satisfactorily establish that the woman was a minor at the time of the crime.
