'We Have Given Highest Respect To Womanhood': CJI Bobde

CJI Bobde: Sharad A. Bobde, the Chief Justice of India, said that Supreme Court has not ordered the rape accused to marry the survivor on Monday.

He said that the court has given the highest respect to womanhood and the media reports which quoted him asking the accused to marry a 14-year-old rape survivor were misquoted.

The comments by the CJI came during a hearing of the same case where the 14-year-old rape survivor sought termination of her pregnancy. During a virtual hearing on March 1, many media reports have quoted the CJI asking a government employee, accused of raping the 14-year-old if he will marry the girl.

The judge reportedly asked the accused person's lawyer, “Will you marry her?” he then added, “You should have thought before seducing and raping the young girl. You knew you are a government servant,” The lawyer later told the court that the accused has declined as he is already married.

Clarifying his position on the same, CJI said that people tried to tarnish the judiciary's image and that a mechanism to counter such should be set up. The Bench headed by CJI said that the judiciary's reputation is in the hands of the bar.

Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General of India, added to the CJI's comment and said that his comment of March 1 was twisted out of context. According to the prosecutor's of the survivor, the girl had been allegedly repeatedly been rape by the accused man since she was going to high school.

He then appealed to the Supreme Court claiming that he has been framed in the case and that the girl and him were in a live-in relationship and she accused him of rape when their relationship started to go sour. He argued that the sexual relationship shared between the two was consensual. The court stayed his arrest.

CJI Bobde was reported saying to the accused man, " If you want to marry we can help you. If not your lose your job and go to jail. You seduced the, raped her".