NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that groping a female and untying her pajama string constituted “attempt to rape” and set aside Allahabad HC’s controversial judgment terming the offense not an “attempt” but “preparation to commit rape”, which attracts less punishment, being categorized as outraging the modesty of a woman. The HC’s March 17, 2025, judgment had created a furo-re and SC took suo motu cognizance of the case after a letter from NGO ‘We the Women’ through founder president and senior advocate Shobha Gupta. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and NV Anjaria set aside the HC judgment and revived the original stringent charge of attempt to rape against the two persons under Pocso Act. Referring to pleas by Gupta and senior advocate HS Phoolka for greater sensitivity in judges while dealing with sexual offenses against women, the bench said, “No judge or judgment of any court can be expected to do complete justice when it is inconsiderate towards the factual realities of a litigant and the vulnerabilities which they may be facing in approaching a court of law.” Writing the judgment, CJI Kant said the efforts of judges “must not only be grounded in the sound application of constitutional and legal principles but also foster an environment of compassion and empathy. The absence of eit-her of these cornerstones wo-uld prevent judicial institutions from properly performing their critical duties.” The bench said, “Our decisions as participants in the legal process, from laying down the procedure that shall have to be faced by common citizens to the final judgment passed in any given case, must reflect the ethos of compassion, humanity and understanding, which are essential for creating a fair and effective justice system.” SC said it had laid down principles to sensitize judges and so would refrain from taking an open-ended approach to devise fresh guidelines without guidance. It requested National Judicial Academy director Justice Aniruddha Bose to constitute a committee of experts to prepare a “comprehensive report” on ‘Developing Guidelines to Inculcate Sensitivity and Compassion into Judges and Judicial Processes in the Context of Sexual Offenses and other Vulnerable Cases’. “The guidelines, we expect, will not be loaded with heavy, complicated expressions borne from foreign languages and jurisdictions,” said the CJI-led bench, which had termed then CJI DY Cha-ndrachud’s ‘Handbook on Co-mbating gender Stereotypes’ too “Harvard-oriented”.
