Lucknow: Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra Judge Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra of the Allahabad High Court has recently made headlines for his remarks in a significant case. He said under the law, an alleged act of grabbing a woman’s breast forcibly and tearing her pyjama strings wouldn’t be defined as rape but as a very serious sexual offence under Section 354-B. The above distinction clearly elaborates the line between attempted rape and design to commit a crime.
Justice Mishra was born on November 6, 1964. In 1985 he graduated in law, and in 1987 he did his postgraduation. He joined the Uttar Pradesh Judicial Service as Munsif in 1990 and rose to the higher Judicial Service in 2005. Before taking on the post of district and session judge in 2019, he served in different districts, such as Baghpat and Aligarh.
In another important case, the Justice Mishra bench set aside an order of a lower court that had drawn a parallel between Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Greek philosopher Plato, saying that state philosophers could benefit as they were engaged in sacrifice and prayer and not in opulence.
When passing an order in a 2023 rape case, which was also decided in front of a bench headed by Justice Mishra, he had said that no rape victim can ever be a co-accused, and a witness can never be cross-examined on the basis of his/her testimony. The court, in a 2024 hearing, noted that having a meal once a day “may be next to impossible” for even a middle-class woman if it comes with a meagre allowance and suggested that the maintenance allowance be increased to Rs 5,000.
Justice Mishra is also hearing the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Eidgah Mosque case in Mathura, which is next listed for hearing on April 3.