ON AUGUST 16, 2023, the Supreme Court, under the then Chief Justice of India (‘CJI’) D.Y. Chandrachud released a handbook on combating gender stereotypes, addressed to judges and the legal community. It was born out of the need for the Court to bind itself to standards it has declared essential to constitutional fidelity. It recognised that language, more than a mere communication tool, was also a sociopolitical indicator that reflects the prevailing attitudes and ethos of any society.
Advocacy, in particular, is a profession that is intrinsically linked to language. Language is used in mentioning, arguments, written submissions, and interactions with all stakeholders, including but not limited to victims and survivors. It shapes outcomes, influences how survivors are believed, and determines whether courts uphold their oath to decide cases without prejudice.
On Tuesday, CJI Surya Kant set aside a judgment of the Allahabad High Court, which had ruled “grabbing the breasts” and “loosening the pyjama string” of a survivor did not amount to an attempt to rape. While setting it aside, CJI Surya Kant criticised the handbook on gender stereotypes, which prescribed best practices to prevent harm due to sexist language, for being, in his words, “too Harvard-oriented”.
Advocacy, in particular, is a profession that is intrinsically linked to language.
In doing so, we have discarded foreign scholarship. The issue of it being foreign kept aside, though one must ask, ‘Is there really anything wrong in it being aligned with globally acceptable standards of liberal scholarship?’ Why are Indian Judges not held to the standard of Ivy League institutions, considering that by certain metrics they could be considered vital intellectual spaces?
But more than that, with CJI Surya Kant’s proposal, a constitutional commitment for gender equality has also been eviscerated. The CJI’s critique is creating strawmen. The handbook was never meant to be a pamphlet for survivors or her family. It “aims to assist judges and the legal community in identifying, understanding and combating stereotypes about women.” as its foreword clearly stated.
Even a cursory glance through the handbook would illustrate that its 20-odd citations are all references to the Supreme Court of India’s own precedents. Consider what the handbook actually does. It warns judges against relying on predetermined stereotypes, as required by the judicial oath. It quotes the Court's own language describing adultery law as a codified rule of patriarchy. It compiled binding Supreme Court precedent on how stereotypes distort adjudication, particularly in cases of sexual violence. It explains why assumptions about how rape survivors should behave, what they should wear, or how quickly they should report are legally impermissible.
Why is this tool being considered too ‘technical’ for Indian judges? The Handbook merely asks them to recognise patterns of reasoning that have been declared unconstitutional. When a judge questions why a survivor did not scream, or infers consent from her behaviour after assault, or uses her past sexual conduct to measure credibility, that judge is engaging in language and conduct that perpetuates bias and discrimination.
The perpetuation of bias and stigma, and the means to combat it, cannot hide behind the guise that it is too technical. It is the duty of every judge and even a citizen of the country to know the law. The judiciary has to have the onus on themselves to familiarise themselves with non-sexist language in 2026.
What is even more troubling is the invocation of accessibility as justification for abandoning an institutional standard. It goes without saying that the framing of the handbook being ‘Harvard oriented’ must be problematised – it suggests that gender-sensitive language (which pre-empts the epistemic violence of patriarchally-coded language) is worthy of discarding since it borrows from liberal progressive learnings from global spaces and is assumed to be technical.
The Handbook was intended to be a document that set up higher and perhaps aspirational standards for the Indian judiciary.
The overarching concern here appears to be that trial judges need plainer language. The solution for that cannot be to discard the handbook. Instead, it has to be supplemented. Proper implementation has to be routed through the National Judicial Academy (‘NJA’). The NJA should issue an official plain-language Companion; this could include some best practices, such as checklists, model paragraphs, or even templates. The role of language is of utmost importance, and the NJA has to take all steps possible to fulfil its mandate of “aid the judges in their judging role”. CJI Surya Kant rightly pointed out that “it serves no purpose to sermonise the High Court judges sitting in the Supreme Court. They must get practical training at NJA”. The NJA should have rolled out structured training workshops on the existing guidelines. There was nothing erroneous in the existing ones that necessitated ‘fine-tuning’ and keeping it on hold further.
The Handbook was intended to be a document that set up higher and perhaps aspirational standards for the Indian judiciary. It was supposed to promote a more inclusive and equitable culture in the bar and the bench. Without addressing the concerns surrounding how the Handbook’s guiding mandate could be enforced more clearly across India’s lower judiciary, any proposal for significant revisions to it undermines the standards that judging in a constitutional democracy demands.