HC releases woman rescued from prostitution racket

The Bombay High Court has released a 22-year-old woman, rescued from a prostitution racket and kept at a correctional facility for a year, saying she cannot be kept in the protection home against her wish as she was an adult.

In a judgement passed Thursday, Justice S S Shinde held it was "imperative" to note that in the absence of her willingness, an adult victim cannot be kept in a correction facility.

The court was hearing a petition filed by a woman from Pandharpur in Maharashtra, challenging the orders of the local magistrate's court and the sessions court that had refused to grant her the victim's custody.

 

In the orders passed in January and March this year, both the courts had directed the victim be sent to a state-run correctional and rehabilitation facility in Pune for one year.

The victim was rescued in January this year in a raid conducted by local authorities. Eleven others were arrested at the time in the case under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.

The petitioner, however, approached the high court, saying she was like a mother to the victim and had raised her as her own daughter, and therefore, she be granted her custody.

While the state opposed the plea, the petitioner's counsel, Satyavrat Joshi, argued that the Act provided for the victim's rescue and ensured that victims were not prosecuted in such cases.

He argued that since the petitioner had no role in forcing the woman into trafficking, there was no harm in releasing the woman into her custody.

Advocate Joshi also said forcing the victim to stay in the correctional facility away from her relatives and her one-and-half-year-old child was in breach of her Constitutional Rights under Article 19, which permitted her to move across the country without any restriction.

The court took note of Joshi's arguments and also of the fact that the victim's probation officer had recommended that she be released into the petitioner's custody.

"The question for determination is whether such mechanism (provisions of the Act) can be used for the reform of a victim, more particularly an adult in the absence of her willingness," Justice Shinde said.

"Therefore, I find considerable force in the submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the victim being a major, her fundamental right to move from one place to another place, reside at the place of her choice, and to choose her vocation has to be considered, and contrary to her wishes she cannot be asked to reside in the said corrective institution," he said.

Justice Shinde ruled that the orders of the magistrate and the sessions court be modified to mean the victim stays at the correctional facility for six months instead of one year, and to consider the time she had already spent at the facility as the said six months.

The judge, however, rejected the petitioner's prayer for custody and said the victim could decide where she wanted to go from the facility.