Long way to achieve complete equality for girl children: Calcutta High Court's Port Blair Bench

Calcutta High Court highlights ongoing struggles for girl child equality after tragic case of woman and daughter’s deaths.

Setting aside the discharge of the in-laws of a woman who died by suicide after killing her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, the Calcutta High Court's Port Blair circuit Bench said the society still has a long way to go to achieve complete equality for girl children.

The Port Blair sessions court had discharged the woman’s in-laws, accused of torturing her and demanding dowry from her parents, especially after she gave birth to a girl child. She killed her daughter and herself in 2021.

The high court directed the parents-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law of the deceased woman to surrender before the trial court within four weeks.

Passing the judgment on an appeal by the prosecution on February 6, Justice Apurba Sinha Ray lamented, "Although we are happy and indeed rejoicing that our daughters have won the World Cup in Cricket recently, and they are also making remarkable achievements in different fields, sectors etc., the passing away of Rudrika at the age of one and half years reminds us that still we have to go a long way to achieve complete equality for our girl children.”

Justice Ray observed that this court is "reminded of the celebrated proverbial passage quoted in Justice Krishna Iyer’s Essays in ‘Random Reflections’: 'No society is free until the last damsel in distress is free'."

Justice Ray noted that, as per statements of witnesses, the deceased woman had allegedly been subjected to mental and physical torture.