BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Monday came down hard on mute spectators to the December 11 incident in Hosa Vantamuri village in Belagavi district in which a woman was stripped and paraded naked over her son eloping with a girl.
Describing the inaction of those mutely watching the incident as “nothing short of passive abetment” and “collective cowardice”, the court observed that the time has come to take serious steps to fix a collective responsibility for being mute spectators when such incidents occur.
The division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit made the observations on Monday while referring to the first governor-general of British-ruled India Lord William Bentinck’s practice of fixing a collective responsibility by imposing penalties on the entire village to which perpetrators belonged for indulging in arson, loot or robbery to teach them a lesson for allowing them to indulge in such crimes.
The court said: “We have seen such unfortunate situations and it was at the level of punishing the culprits and active assailants. But now the time has come to give a very serious thought and a different angle to look into such situations.”
It reflects collective cowardice: HC
“We are of the opinion that certain solid steps are to be taken by way of an angle to fix the collective responsibility, which would also be in tune with the principle in Article 15 of the Constitution,” the court said after hearing a petition initiated by taking suo motu cognisance of the incident.
The court noted that except for Siddappa, president of the Gram Panchayat, who informed the police, no positive steps were taken by any of the elected members of the Panchayat or other officers at the village level, such as the Panchayat Development Officer.
The court observed that when the victim was subjected to physical torture and mental trauma by 13 assailants, 50-60 villagers were standing at the scene as mute spectators in a village with 8,000 population. Only one person, Jahangir, had shown the courage to assist the victim and make an attempt to save her from the assailants.
But he too was assaulted even as people remained mute spectators. “One may say that they were neither assailants nor the offenders but their inaction and maintaining silence and remaining at the spot as mute spectators is nothing sort of a passive abetment to the incident,” the court observed.
“These are situations which reflect … collective cowardice, or reflect that as members of society, we are only interested in selfishness and aim to secure selfish motives... Unless some serious action is initiated, undertaken with measures of effective implementation and fixing the collective responsibility, there would be no effective check to such incidents and avoid such incidents,” the court said, leaving the issue to the stakeholders to suggest appropriate steps.
The court said it was not “Beti Bachao” or “Beti Padhao”, but “Beta Padhao” (teaching the boy child) which was more important. “Unless you tell the boy child, you will not achieve it… it is for the boy to be told to respect and protect the lady,” the court stated. Further hearing was adjourned to the third week of January, 2024.