What guidelines needed to bail out sexual crime accused, SC asks AG

The Supreme Court asked Attorney General Venugopal and other lawyers about the kind of bail conditions that need to be set while giving bail to those accused of sexual crimes

The Supreme Court on Monday asked Attorney General KK Venugopal and other lawyers to recommend ways to improve gender sensitivity and the kind of bail conditions that need to be set while giving bail to those accused of sexual crimes.

The top court order came in a case wherein the Madhya Pradesh High Court had ordered an alleged molester to visit the victim and allow her to tie a rakhi on his wrist.

After a detailed hearing in the matter, the Supreme court asked the AG, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, who was representing the intervenors, women lawyers represented by Senior Advocate Sanjay Parikh to help it set down guidelines on what sort of bail conditions are permissible while bailing out the accused in sexual offence cases.

Earlier, Venugopal submitted before a bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar that lectures need to be given to district and subordinate courts as also the High Courts on gender sensitisation, pointing out that a gender sensitisation and grievance redressal committee exists in the top court.

Citing the High Court, the AG said that "all this is drama and this needs to be condemned".

"Can you circulate a note with your submissions?" asked the bench.

The AG suggested exams for judges on the issue apart from the national and state judicial academies conducting programmes on gender sensitisation.

"The apex court judgment on the issue should be put on state information system, which will go to the subordinate courts," the AG said.

The Supreme Court had issued notice to the Attorney General to decide the larger issue of judges "trivialising the issue of sexual offences" by such orders.

The next hearing in the matter is scheduled for November 27.

--IANS

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