"Order sends wrong signals": Supreme Court on Calcutta High Court order asking adolescent girls to control sexual urges

The Supreme Court on Thursday remarked that the Calcutta High Court order which called for adolescent girls to "control" their sexual urges sends wrong signals [In Re: Right to Privacy of Adolescent]..A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan also briefly raised concerns about the manner in which judges were invoking their inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in making such observations."The order sends absolutely wrong signals. What kind of principles the judges are applying under Section 482," the top court remarked. .The Court was hearing a suo motu case initiated in the wake of a Calcutta High Court ruling that had called for adolescent girls to "control" their sexual urges instead of "giving in to two minutes of pleasure".The High Court had voiced concerns over the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) conflating consensual acts among adolescents with sexual abuse and called for decriminalizing consensual sexual acts involving adolescents above 16 years.The High Court also called for comprehensive rights-based sexual education for adolescents to avoid legal complications arising from sexual relations at a young age.However, the High Court ruling sparked controversy since it also proposed a 'duty/obligation based approach' for teenagers and suggested that adolescent females and males have different duties. Among other 'duties', adolescent females were advised to "Control sexual urge/urges as in the eyes of society she is the looser when she gives in to enjoy the sexual pleasure of hardly two minutes."Adolescent boys, meanwhile, were asked to respect the duties of young girls or women and to train their minds to respect women, their self-worth, dignity, privacy and right to autonomy. .The Supreme Court had taken suo motu coginzance of the order in December 2023, opining that the comments made by the High Court were sweeping, objectionable, irrelevant, preachy and unwarranted.It had then proceeded to appoint Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan as amicus curiae in the matter and advocate Liz Mathew was asked to assist the amicus..During the hearing of the matter on Thursday, Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi appeared for State of West Bengal and informed the Court that the State has filed an appeal against the High Court verdict. Ahmadi submitted that the State government too was of the opinion that the High Court's observations were "wrong.""From where such concepts come, we do not know. We want to address (the issue)," the Court replied..The Court proceeded to record that it would hear both the suo motu case and the State's appeal in the matter together. The case will be heard next on January 12. .[Read live account from hearings below]