‘Enough is enough’: Women write open letter, demand apology from CJI for asking rapist to marry victim

Chief Justice of India S A Bobde

A day after the Chief Justice of India asked a government servant if he would marry the girl he allegedly raped multiple times, more than 4,000 citizens wrote an open letter to him, demanding his apology and retraction of the remark.

In the letter written on Tuesday, members of over 50 women's rights and progressive groups/networks, feminists, students, senior citizens, advocates and filmmakers stated that they are "deeply distressed by the regressive statements of the CJI asking a rapist to marry the victim and condoning marital rape in court."

"You were hearing the petition [on March 1] for protection from arrest, of a man accused of stalking, tying up, gagging, repeatedly raping a minor school going girl, and threatening to douse her in petrol and set her alight, to hurl acid at her, and to have her brother killed. The facts of the case are that the rape came to light when the victim attempted suicide. You asked this man if he was willing to marry his victim... By suggesting that this rapist marry the survivor, you, the CJI, sought to condemn the survivor to a lifetime of rape at the hands of the tormentor..."

A wrong message
It further read, "Enough is enough. Your words scandalise and lower the authority of the court. From the towering heights of the post of CJI of the Supreme Court, it sends the message to other courts, judges, police and all other law enforcing agencies that justice is not a constitutional right of women in India. This will only lead to the further silencing of girls and women, a process that took decades to break. To the rapists, it sends the message that marriage is a licence to rape; and that by obtaining such a licence, the rapist can post facto decriminalise and legalise his act. We demand that you retract the words... and tender an apology to the women of this country." The letter, undersigned by activists like Annie Raja, Mariam Dhawale, Kavita Krishnan, Kamla Bhasin, asked CJI Bobde to "step down without a moment's delay".