THE MODESTY OF A WOMAN IS HER MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL - THE BOMBAY HIGH COURT

"Throwing chit at a married woman, expressing love through the chit amounts to outrage her modesty". "The modesty of a woman is her most precious jewel, and there cannot be a straitjacket formula to ascertain whether modesty is outraged". Justice Rohit B Deo observed this while hearing a review petition filed by the applicant-accused Shrikrushna challenging the Judgment passed by the Judicial Magistrate of Akola. Whereby, the JM held the applicant accused guilty under Section 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced him to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 2 years. 

The Accused is a grocery shop owner who approached Mrs S while she was washing utensils. He handed her chit, and when she refused to accept the chit, the applicant-accused threw back the chit and kept muttering, "I love you". As per Mrs S, the applicant-accused made obscene gestures the next morning and warned her not to disclose anything written on the chit. Mrs S further said that the applicant-accused used to flirt with her on various occasions and used to throw tiny pebbles on her. Aggrieved by the continuous harassment, Mrs S filed a police complaint. 

During the trial, the accused denied the allegations made by Mrs S and argued that Mrs S bought groceries on credit and is not unwilling to pay them back, therefore the false allegations. 

The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court upheld the conviction; however, it found the conviction under Section 506 unsustainable and modified the period of sentence. 

Author: Papiha Ghoshal