Tags:
Journalism of Courage
After actor Khusboo had been shushed,booed and slapped with no less than 22 criminal cases,all for speaking her mind on premarital sex a few years ago,the Supreme Court,in 2010,came to her defence and gave an order that was truly in line with the world we live in. Living together, the court said,is not an offence. Living together is a right to life. There might have been many puritans still unconvinced by the Supreme Courts ruling,and chafing at the impropriety of live-in relationships,but you would have thought that at least for the august assembly of judges the issue would have been settled. You have been proved wrong by Additional Sessions Judge Surinder S. Rathi of Delhis Tis Hazari Court.
The judge was passing an order,sentencing a woman for killing her live-in partner. The conviction apart,the honourable judge found it pertinent to make some observations about the nature of the couples relationship. Not only did he call live-in relationship an urban fad,but he also pointed out that the immorality of this relationship was further aggravated by unabated flow of liquor and smoke. What is considered immoral by some need not be illegal in this land and the importance of that fine division has been time and again made by the higher judiciary. It is a slippery slope when observations in a court are framed by personal preferences and prejudices.
The SCs ruling was an affirmation of the agency of a couple in a relationship,and their choice. It scuppered social and sexual prejudices and opened the doors for progressive laws. For the sessions court to call it a legal cover for an infamous western cultural product,is,with due respect,outrageous.
