Women can’t be booked for sexual harassment under Indian Penal Code: Kerala High Court
The court observed that section 345A the now-repealed legislation applied only to acts committed by men.
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The Kerala High Court recently observed that a woman cannot be charged with sexual harassment under the Indian Penal Code section 345A even if the alleged offence was committed against another woman, reported Bar and Bench on Saturday.
Justice A Badharudeen made the observation on a plea seeking to quash criminal proceedings intiated by a woman against her in-laws in a marital cruelty case.
The woman has alleged that she was sexually harassed by her sister-in-law. However, the High Court observed that Section 354A of the Indian Penal Code, which addresses sexual harassment, applies only to acts committed by men.
“In order to attract offence under Section 354A of Indian Penal Code, the overt acts dealt under Section 354A(1), (2) and (3), should be the volition of ‘a man’”, the court noted. “So the legislature diligently used the term ‘a man’ instead of ‘any person’ in the statutory provision and the legislative intent is to exclude woman/women from the purview of Section 354A.”
The Indian Penal Code was the official criminal code of India from 1862 until December 2023, when it was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Section 75 of the new law retains the same definition of sexual harassment as the old one.
The woman who filed the marital cruelty case...
