A woman’s right of movement cannot be restricted in guise of protection: Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court last week questioned a government college regarding its arbitrary restrictions placed on girl students for moving inside or outside campus post 9:30 pm. The government college was criticised and asked why such restriction must be placed on girls and not on boys.

Justice Devan Ramchandran observed that men must be locked up because they create ruckus not ladies.

“Lock up the men, they create the ruckus. Let the ladies walk out,” the judge said.

On the last date of hearing the court had asked government college to come up with a compelling justification as to why the restriction was imposed. Yesterday, they informed court that the restriction was placed after parents' demand.

To this the court answered that the college has an obligation to keep campus safe and the impugned notification will not serve the purpose and nothing will be gained from putting restriction on women.

The Kerala High Court was hearing a plea against the impugned notification issued by the Higher Education Department of Government Medical College Kozhikode barring female students from going outside post 9:30 pm.

“Going by the discussion that this Court had at the Bar today, it appears that one of the reasons for fixing this time frame is that students will find no reason to go outside after 9.30 pm, because the reading rooms and the libraries would have closed by them. However, there can also be situations where students would want to walk out in the nights, for other reasons, as they may deem. This has been restricted through Ext.P2; and I am certain, therefore, that the competent Authorities must come out with the rationale in imposing the said limitation.”

The Court observed that they are constrained to make such observations because in the modern times, any patriarchism - even in the guise of offering protection based on gender - would have to be frowned upon because girls, as much as boys, are fully capable of taking care of themselves; and if not, it must be the endeavour of the State and the Public Authorities to make them so competent, rather than being locked in.

The petitioner was represented by Advocates V. Harish and Rajan Vishnuraj. Government Pleader Parvathy Kottol, Standing Counsel of Kerala University of Health Science P. Sreekumar & respondents were represented by Standing Counsel of Kerala Women's Commission Parvathy Menon

The case is listed next for Thursday for hearing.