India, Aug. 14 -- A constitutional democracy cannot survive if derogatory practices such as witch-hunting continue to elude the principles of rule of law and constitutional morality, the Supreme Court said on Thursday. The apex court upheld the conviction and life sentence awarded to a man who, along with a co-accused, had dragged a woman from her house and assaulted her in 1998 while branding her as a practitioner of witchcraft in Odisha. The woman died due to the assault. "While parting with the case, we would just like to say that the facts of the present case has deeply disturbed the conscience of this court, wherein a defenseless woman was branded as a practitioner of witchcraft and what effect it must have had on the daughter of the deceased who had to witness her mother being killed in the most brutal way," a bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N V Anjaria said. Also Read - TVK welcomes SC's stay of Madras HC ruling against jobs to kin of stampede victims It said the Constitution of India envisioned a society founded on the principles of equality, fraternity, scientific temperament, wherein any practice derogatory to women was to be discarded. The bench said despite this, practices such as witch-hunting continue to persist within few sections of the society. "A constitutional democracy such as ours cannot survive; wherein such derogatory practices continue to elude the principles of rule of law and constitutional morality," it said. "This court fervently hopes that the present case serves as a solemn reminder that justice must always prevail over superstition and irrational beliefs," it said. Also Read - Jharkhand Protest: 300 unidentified people booked over violence, vandalism in Ranchi The top court delivered its verdict on an appeal filed by one Balku Oram who had challenged a September 2022 order of the Orissa High Court. The high court had affirmed the conviction and life sentence imposed on the appellant by a trial court. In its verdict, the apex court quoted Dr B R Ambedkar: "A just society is that society in which ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society." The bench said it is true that the malady of witch-hunting still plagues sections of the society where prejudice, superstition and irrational fear supersedes the rule of law.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.