The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will decide if a person in a position of power can be held accountable for making public statements about rape victims, PTI reported. Victims of the crime have the fundamental right of protection of life and personal liberty.

The court’s announcement was made during the hearing of the Bulandshahr gangrape case, where robbers had gangraped a woman and her teenage daughter in August last year. Azam Khan, who was an Uttar Pradesh minister at the time, had drawn criticism for saying that the victim’s allegations could be part of a “political conspiracy”.

Advertisement

However, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi who was representing the Centre, said public figures cannot be stopped from commenting on criminal acts as it would infringe on their right to Freedom of Expression, Hindustan Times reported. “If an offence of rape occurs and someone says it is a political conspiracy, then there can be no restriction on such expression. He is not trivialising the incident,” Rohatgi said.

The apex court bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar said it would examine if the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression can be governed by the reasonable restrictions of decency or morality, PTI reported. “The core issue, as is projected before us, is whether the right conferred under Article 19(1)(a) is to be controlled singularly by the language employed under Article 19(2) or also the other fundamental right, that is right under Article 21 would have any impact on it.”

In December, the court had accepted Khan’s apology for his comments. The 15-year-old gangrape survivor had approached the Supreme Court seeking a First Information Report against Khan for his remarks. The apex court had issued a notice to Khan on August 29 for his comment. “It is a democratic principle that a public servant should not comment on the investigation of crime if it is not related to him,” the court had observed then.