The Delhi High Court on Monday said a girl’s choice of clothing is a personal decision and that suggesting her wearing jeans might ‘corrupt young boys’ shows a deeply troubling and unacceptable mindset. The court made the observation while convicting a man for sexually harassing a girl in 2013 after setting aside his acquittal by a trial court.
The high court said the only issue in the case was whether an offence had been committed, and held that the trial court had wrongly relied on irrelevant factors to doubt the girl’s testimony. It, however, said the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act could not be applied because the prosecution failed to satisfactorily establish that the girl was a minor.
The girl had alleged that the accused, her neighbour, stalked her, made sexually coloured remarks and touched her inappropriately. The State had challenged the accused’s acquittal before the high court after the trial court cleared him in 2014.
In its judgement, the court objected to what it called character assassination of the girl through the line of cross-examination and arguments adopted by the defence at trial. It said the questions put to her included her ‘western’ dressing, the religion of people in the locality and their objections to her clothing. Justice Chandrasekharan Sudha said, “What a girl or woman chooses to wear is a matter of her personal choice. Neither her neighbours, nor society, nor the accused, nor counsel appearing in a court of law has any right to dictate her clothing. It is simply none of their concern. The suggestion that a woman wearing jeans may ‘corrupt young boys’ reflects a deeply troubling and unacceptable mindset.”
The court added, “The answer does not lie in controlling the clothes of girls and women. Parents and society must instead teach their children to control their conduct, respect personal boundaries and treat every human with dignity, whether at home or outside.” Justice Sudha said the cross-examination in the case was wholly irrelevant and improper, and should have been disallowed by the trial judge at the outset. The court also said a woman’s choice of attire does not reduce her dignity or justify unlawful conduct against her, and that questions about a woman’s clothing, character, lifestyle, religion or personal choices must not be allowed unless they are strictly relevant to an issue in the case.
Emphasising that “even a woman of easy virtue” is entitled to protect her person, the court said the religion of local residents and the clothes worn by the girl had no connection with the allegation. It said that even if her clothes were not approved by the accused or others in the locality, that was no ground to disbelieve or discard her testimony. Holding that the trial court’s reasons for acquittal were immaterial and did not affect the core prosecution case, the high court found that the material on record clearly made out an offence under Section 354A(1)(i) of the IPC and convicted the accused, while ruling out the POCSO charge for want of proof that the girl was a minor.
– Ends
With PTI inputs
Published By:
India Today Web Desk
Published On:
Aug 10, 2026 21:09 IST
