Sexual Harassment Complaint Will Not Stand If Woman Was Wearing Provocative Dress: Kerala Court

In what could be used to justify victim-blaming, a court in Kerala has held that sexual harassment charges will not stand prima facie if a woman was wearing a "sexually provocative" dress.

The Kozhikode Sessions Court made the observation on Wednesday while hearing the bail application of Malayalam writer and activist Civic Chandran in a sexual harassment case.

Unsplash/Representational image

The court on Wednesday granted bail to the 74-year-old who is facing two sexual harassment cases.

What the court said

"The photographs produced along with the bail application by the accused would reveal that the defacto complainant herself is wearing a dress which is sexually provocative. So Section 354A will not prima facie stand against the accused. Even admitting that there was physical contact it is impossible to believe that a man aged 74 and physically disabled can forcefully put the defacto complainant in his lap," the court said.

Case against Civic Chandran

The complainant had alleged that in February 2020, the accused had allegedly caught her hands and forcefully took her to a lonely place when they were camping at Nandi Beach along with some other people.

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The alleged incident happened in February 2020 case while the case was registered on July 29, 2022.

The Koyilandy police registered the case for offences under Sections 354A(2), 341 and 354 of IPC.

What Chandran's lawyer said

The lawyer of the accused claimed in court that the allegations were cooked up and questioned why the case was filed two years after the alleged incident.

The lawyer also produced photographs posted by the complainant on her social media account and argued that she was accompanied by her boyfriend to the place of occurrence and there were a number of people present at the time of the alleged incident and no one raised such a complaint against the accused.

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Sends wrong message: Women's Commission Chairperson

Reacting to the observations made by the court, Kerala Women's Commission Chairperson P Satheedevi termed it "unfortunate" and said by making such references even before the evidence is presented and the trial is held, the court is effectively dismissing the allegations levelled by the complainant.

"This sends a very wrong message in serious cases like rape", she said.

Chandran is also facing another case where a writer belonging to a Scheduled Tribe community, alleged sexual harassment by him during a book exhibition in April.

Though two cases were filed against Chandran, he was not arrested by the police and he was granted anticipatory bail in the first case on August 2.

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