The Supreme Court set aside an order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which had directed a man accused of sexual assault to get Rakhi tied on his wrist by the victim as a condition for bail (Aparna Bhat v. State of Madhya Pradesh).
The bench comprisef of Justices AM Khanwilkar and S Ravindra Bhat rendered this judgement on a petition by Supreme Court advocate Aparna Bhat and eight other woman lawyers challenging a July 2020 order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
The plea contended that such judgments from High Courts would end up trivializing such heinous offence and that "there is a strong likelihood that such observations and directions may result in normalizing what is essentially a crime and has been recognized to be so by the law."
The Bench also issued a slew of directions to be followed by lower courts while dealing with bail petitions in matters relating to crimes against women.