New Delhi: A Delhi court has sentenced a man to three years in jail for sexually harassing and threatening to throw acid on a woman after she rejected his marriage proposal.
The convict also faced the ire of the court for using derogatory words against the woman with Additional Sessions Judge Savita Rao saying his "utterance" suggested that he was "shameless" and seemed to have not learnt any lesson.
The court sentenced the convict to 3-year imprisonment for the offences of sexual harassment, stalking and criminal intimidation under the IPC and also slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on him.
"Convict has been warned of using such kind of language.
Utterance of the convict itself is suggestive of the fact that instead of being remorseful, he is shameless to the extent of using demeaning words against the complainant even before the court and seems to have not learnt any lesson from his past mistakes.
"Taking a lenient view, in these circumstances, would only be conveying a wrong message to the society and to such kind of people that they are above the law and they can be let off even after demeaning the womanhood," the judge said.
"Sexual abuse against women is often a result of unequal power equations both real and perceived between men and women and is also strongly influenced by patriarchal notions of society, which seems to be the reason that the accused was not willing to take 'No' to his marriage proposal to the complainant," the court said.