Personal experiences, helplessness spurred us to fight for judicial reforms, say petitioners ahead of SC verdict on sexual assault cases

The women who triggered the change feel there’s still a long way to go in building a justice system which is intimidating for the abuser, and not daunting for the victim. So, when a person is found guilty and then compensation is awarded that is completely different from taking money from the person at the beginning of the trial, which kind of makes it sound like it is to make her keep quiet.” Furthermore, the protectionist undertone of the ruling aside, the nine women petitioners also raised legal issues such as whether in a case seeking bail, it is appropriate for a court to impose extraneous conditions which allow contact between the accused and the complainant. Rama Ramachandra Iyer, a practising corporate lawyer who has worked for women’s rights and gender equality extensively, said that when the Madhya Pradesh case made headlines, she decided not to pass up on an opportunity to actually do something about things that she had faced in her years of practice. So, this was one opportunity where I am not a lawyer, but I’m a petitioner, a citizen of the country, a woman who has raised the voice against such conditions or conditions that a victim has to go through.” For Bhat, however, the reasoning was equally personal: “When we would go to college, and somebody would trouble us, you know some kind of teasing or catcalling or whistling in the bus. “It is that person who has been wronged, it is she who has been offended, not her husband, not her father, not her brother,” says Iyer, adding that when the society learns to make that distinction only then will the judiciary also prioritise the wrong committed against that person while dispensing justice, rather than trying to restore that ‘lost honour’ somehow.