NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on June 3 stayed an Allahabad High Court's May 23 order directing the Astrology Department to ascertain whether an alleged rape victim was 'mangalik'.
A vacation bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Pankaj Mithal while making it clear that it was not entering into the merits of astrology as a science, noted that such an order should not have been passed while hearing a bail plea.
“This was totally out of context and this is an infringement of the right to privacy. We don’t want to join with you on this as to what astronomy has to do. We are only concerned with linking the subject matter to this issue,” Justice Dhulia remarked.
“We don’t understand why this astrology report is called for,” Justice Mithal remarked.
Supreme Court stayed the HC order remarking that an astrology report was not required in a bail plea and directed it to evaluate the bail plea based on merits.
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court gave bail to the rape accused whose lawyer told the court that the woman was mangalik, which astrologers believe is an inauspicious alignment of planets that comes in the way of a happy married life, and his client didn't intend to marry her.
The victim's lawyer, however, argued that the girl was not a manglik.
In response, the court ordered both sides to submit their birth charts to the head of the astrology department at Lucknow University within 10 days. The head of the department was given three weeks to submit a report in a sealed cover.
The woman has claimed she got intimate with the accused after he promised to marry her but he turned down her marriage proposal, saying she was a manglik.
Terming the order as disturbing, SG Tushar Mehta for UP Govt said that HC should not have gone into this aspect. “ The only question is while entertaining application by judicial forum can this be an aspect? The competent court cannot examine this while adjudicating this issue,” Mehta added.
The high court listed the case for hearing on June 26.