Court case(1995) 6 SCC 194

At a dinner party in Chandigarh on 18 July 1988, K.P.S. Gill, then Director General of Police, Punjab, asked Rupan Deol Bajaj, an IAS officer, to sit next to him, drew his chair close to hers, and when she got up to leave, slapped her on the posterior in front of the guests. She lodged an FIR under ss. 341, 342, 352, 354 and 509 IPC. The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the FIR and the complaint, holding that the allegations were trivial and covered by s. 95 IPC and that the delay and the publicity showed an ulterior motive.

The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order and directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate to try the complaint. Since the IPC does not define "modesty", the Court adopted the dictionary meaning, "womanly propriety of behaviour; scrupulous chastity of thought, speech and conduct", and held that the essence of a woman's modesty is her sex. Slapping a woman on her posterior in the presence of others, with the earlier conduct, would prima facie outrage her modesty and the accused must be presumed to have intended or known it. The act could not be a trifle under s. 95, because the harm caused to a woman's dignity by such conduct is not one that a person of ordinary sense and temper would ignore. Gill was later convicted under ss. 354 and 509, and the conviction was upheld in 2005.