The first woman additional solicitor general of India, Indira Jaising, took on a Supreme Court Bench in open court on Friday for what she called was its ?male chauvinist and derogatory? language against Indian women in its judgement delivered on Thursday on the legal status of live-in relationships.
The Bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice TS Thakur had delivered its judgement in which the judges used the term ?keep? to describe the status of a woman whom a man ?maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant?.
The judgement, written by Justice Katju, specifically used the expression ?keep? in tandem with other ones like ?one-night stands? and ?merely spending weekends together? to illustrate that women involved in such relationships are exempted from claiming benefits of maintenance under the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act, 2005, in case her partner abandons her.
The court had said only those live-in relationships in which the couples concerned appear to be spouses for the public qualify to come under the ambit of the expression ?relationships in the nature of marriage? listed in the 2005 Act as worthy of maintenance.
Incidentally, it was Jaising who drafted the 2005 Act.
The exchange between Jaising and the Bench occurred this morning at Court no 6 of the Supreme Court when Justice Katju in open court referred to Jaising, present in the courtroom for another case, as the architect of the statute in question.
?I am very proud of it (drafting the 2005 Act). I was the one who coined the expression ?relationships in the nature of marriage? in the draft. But Your Lordships have used the expression ?keep? for Indian women and it translates into the Hindi term rakhel , which is highly derogatory of women and totally betrays a male chauvinist attitude. In the 21st Century, the Supreme Court of India is not supposed to use expressions like this,? Jaising narrated to The Indian Express what she told the Bench. ?Other expressions you have used in the judgement like ?one-night stand? will not be found in Mills and Boon (genre of romance novels). There is no legal concept of one-night stand. Which law defines a one-night stand?? she asked the court.
It was at this point, according to Jaising, Justice Thakur intervened with a question as to if not ?keep? could the court have aptly used the expression ?concubine?.