Supreme Court To Hear Suo Motu Case Asking Calcutta HC Judgment Asking Female Adolescents To Control “Sexual Urges”

The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognizance of a Calcutta High Court judgment which observed that female teenagers should control their “sexual urges” rather than giving in to enjoy sexual pleasure for “hardly two minutes”. The cause title of the matter reads as "In Re : Right to Privacy of Adolescent”. 

A Supreme Court Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal will take up the suo motu case for hearing, tomorrow.

While hearing a POCSO case, the Calcutta High Court recently observed "every female adolescent should control sexual urge as in the eyes of the society she will be the looser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes."

The findings were made by the High Court while acquitting a young boy who had been condemned to 20 years in jail under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 for engaging in sexual contact with a minor.

In the judgment, the bench of Justices Chitta Ranjan Dash and Partha Sarathi asked adolescent girls to protect their bodily integrity, control sexual urges, adolescent males to respect the duties of a young girl and train theirs mind to respect a woman, her self-worth, her dignity & privacy, among others. 

Interestingly, in the judgement, the High Court also delved into the biological basis for sexual impulses in adolescent men and women, concluding that while the presence of libido in one's body is natural, the relevant glands only become active through “stimulation” resulting in a sexual need.

The judgement did receive a lot of backlashes from the legal community and others for its misogynistic and patriarchal views.

[Read Order]