The Supreme Court on Wednesday came down heavily on a woman advocate, Deepa Joseph, for making a “derogatory” Facebook post targeting a rape complainant who has accused Kerala Congress MLA Rahul Mamkoottathil of sexual assault.
A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi expressed strong displeasure at the language used in the post, calling it inappropriate, particularly coming from a practising advocate and a woman.
“Being a lady, what sort of comments have you made about other women… Had it been a man who had written all this nonsense, we would have got him arrested here itself,” the Chief Justice remarked during the hearing.
Joseph had approached the apex court seeking protection from arrest by Kerala Police in connection with her social media post. However, the bench refused to entertain the plea and directed her to seek appropriate relief from the Kerala High Court.
At the outset, the court reprimanded her for the tone and content of her post.
“Are you expected to write in this type of language? You are an advocate,” CJI Surya Kant said.
The lawyer submitted that her comments were based on information shared by the complainant’s husband, and claimed there was no defamatory content nor any disclosure of the rape survivor’s identity.
The bench, however, was not convinced.
“Do we expect a practising woman advocate to write all these things?” the Chief Justice asked.
“You have not spared a single word in your dictionary. And still you are not regretting! Should we read out in public what you have written?”
The court also questioned her professional conduct in publicising purportedly confidential information received from the complainant’s husband, asking:
“If the husband has come forward to you and confided in you since you are an advocate, then you will put that confidential information in the public domain?”
When the bench asked whether she was officially engaged by the husband to write “all this nonsense,” Joseph responded, “It is not nonsense, Sir.”
The court ultimately dismissed her petition, leaving her to pursue any remedy before the Kerala High Court.
