SUPREME COURT CORRECTS GENDER-BASED MISCONCEPTIONS

Recently, the Supreme Court has taken a significant step towards change by releasing a handbook for judges and lawyers to use in court, replacing words filled with anti-women sentiments in the name of long-standing male dominance with new words.

This important intervention by the apex Court is based on understanding how the power of words influences society in general and various fields, especially the legal field. In the preface of the book, the Hon'ble Chief Justice of the Supreme Court states that this handbook is intended for the legal community to understand and respond to gender-based misconceptions. The Supreme Court has also directed that harmful gender-based misconceptions should not be used in judicial pronouncements and legal drafting.

The handbook released by the Supreme Court contains a large collection of words and phrases currently used and new words and phrases suggested for use.

It recommends a change in the words used in the judicial system and suggests new words to be used in drafting, court judgments, and arguments. Further, the top court instructs that such words should not only be avoided when making judgments in court but also that they should be responded to and corrected. Reliance on such misconceptions will prevent justice from being served. Judges should try to understand and avoid such misconceptions.

The Gender-based misconceptions lead to various forms of denial of justice.

The court's effort is to form a view based on equality, without evaluating facts separated by gender differences. The same court itself has pointed out many previous judgments and directed that gender-based misconceptions should not occur anymore.

The handbook provides two lists of words and phrases currently used and new ones to be used. It instructs not to use the old ones anymore. A large collection of words is presented here, through which the Supreme Court itself recommends using new words, avoiding words that are misused in the legal field that reflect male dominance and anti-women sentiments.

This calls for a change in the legal field itself.