A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde on Monday said its observations during the hearing of a rape case last week were “completely misreported” and added that it has the “highest respect for women”.

The comments - on International Women’s Day - come in the wake of recent criticism against the SC that it had asked an accused whether he would marry the victim, who was a minor when he allegedly raped her multiple times. “We (had) asked are you going to marry? We didn’t order (him to) ‘marry’,” the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, said.