SC: Silence on spousal abuse is norm, not ground to doubt women

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a woman's failure to immediately report sexual or physical violence by her spouse cannot be used to cast doubt on her testimony, stating that silence is the norm among abused women in India, not an exception. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and Vijay Bishnoi made the observation while rejecting a man's appeal against his conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting and murdering his six-year-old stepdaughter.

The court cited National Family Health Survey-5 data showing 29.3 per cent of ever-married women aged 18-49 reported experiencing spousal physical or sexual violence, and nearly three-fourths of victims never sought help or disclosed the abuse. The bench said victims and witnesses do not react to trauma uniformly, and courts must not judge them against stereotyped assumptions. It noted the victim's mother was a widow without independent means whose movements and phone access were controlled by her husband, calling her 'in a real and not a merely rhetorical sense, a captive.'

The court upheld the man's conviction but commuted his death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life.