The Supreme Court on Thursday said victimisation of women in the name of "witchcraft" reflects a deep-rooted social prejudice that seeks scapegoats rather than solutions, and warned that superstition and irrational fear cannot be allowed to override reason and the rule of law.
A bench of justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and NV Anjaria made the observations while upholding the life sentence of an Odisha man convicted of murdering a woman after accusing her of practising witchcraft.
The top court dismissed the appeal filed by Balku Oram, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing the woman in 1998. The Odisha High Court had upheld his conviction and sentence, following which he approached the apex court.
The Supreme Court held that the appeal was devoid of merit and that the state had proved that Oram and his co-accused had brutally assaulted the victim, causing her death. It went a step further and said that the facts of the case had "deeply disturbed the conscience of the Court."
It lamented that practices such as witch craft still persisted in a constitutional democracy like India.
"When faced with fear, grief or an unexplained event, society can find it easier to blame a woman than confront the real cause. Such instinct to find a scapegoat reflected entrenched prejudice across the society," the court said, stressing that "reason" must replace irrational beliefs that turn vulnerable women into targets of hostility.
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