CJI calls Supreme Court's gender handbook ‘too Harvard-oriented’, seeks practical guidelines

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant

• CJI Surya Kant set aside the Supreme Court's 2023 Handbook on Gender Stereotypes
• The handbook was deemed too technical and "Harvard-oriented" for practical use
• Panel to draft new guidelines; High Court judges to receive practical training.

Did our AI summary help?

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant set aside the Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes, published by the Supreme Court in 2023 under the initiative of then CJI D Y Chandrachud.

According to the CJI, the handbook was too technical and “Harvard-oriented” to be of any real help to rape survivors or common citizens.

Chandrachud had  obtained an LLM degree in 1983 and a Doctorate in Juridical Sciences (SJD) in 1986 from Harvard Law School.

The remarks came during the hearing of a suo motu case triggered by an Allahabad High Court judgment that held that acts such as “grabbing the breasts” and “loosening the pyjama string” did not amount to an attempt to rape.

A bench comprising the CJI and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N V Anjaria observed that the handbook assigned forensic meanings to different aspects of sexual assault, which may not be understood by survivors, their families, or commoners.

“It is too Harvard-oriented,” the CJI said.

The bench directed the National Judicial Academy (NJA), Bhopal, to constitute a panel of domain experts, academicians, and lawyers to revisit the issue, frame practical guidelines, and submit a report to the apex court. “We will take assistance of lawyers, including amicus curiae Shobha Gupta and senior advocate H S Phoolka, to fine-tune it,” the bench said.

Once finalised, the guidelines should be made part of the NJA’s study material, the CJI said, adding that High Court judges should be trained in batches on the sensitivities required while dealing with sexual assault cases. “It serves no purpose to sermonise the HC judges sitting in the Supreme Court. They must get practical training at NJA,” he added.

The bench also set aside the Allahabad High Court’s March 17, 2025 order, which had drawn a distinction between preparation and attempt to commit rape, and directed the trial court to proceed against the two accused.

The High Court ruling had sparked widespread outrage, prompting the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance on March 26 last year, stay the judgment, and express anguish over the insensitivity displayed by the judge.

In the foreword to the 2023 handbook, former CJI Chandrachud had said the document sought to identify common stereotypes about women used by courts in the past, explain why they were inaccurate, and show how such assumptions could distort the application of law—particularly in cases involving sexual violence.