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World

Supreme Court takes suo motu note of sexual assaults on minors in Delhi-NCR, seeks police reply

India's Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of a spate of sexual assaults against minors and women in Delhi-NCR, drawing a 'painful parallel' to the 2012 Nirbhaya case and seeking Delhi Police's response.

By Sarah Whitfield · · 1 min read

India’s Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognisance of a spate of sexual assaults against minors and women in Delhi-NCR, ordering Delhi Police to respond and warning that public spaces “cannot be made zones of high risk”.

A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran took note of news reports of three recent incidents: the alleged rape of a 17-year-old at Aastha Kunj Park near Lady Shri Ram College, the alleged gang rape of a minor in Swaroop Nagar, and the sexual assault of another minor inside a moving sleeper bus travelling from Greater Noida to Delhi.

In the Swaroop Nagar case, police recovered the teenage victim’s decomposed body from a field. In the bus case, the vehicle travelled about 47 kilometres without being intercepted by police.

The bench said “one cannot help but draw a painful parallel to the 2012 Nirbhaya case”, questioning whether law enforcement mechanisms had made meaningful progress since then, and stressed that the right to live with dignity and without fear of violence is part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The court also noted that students of Lady Shri Ram College had earlier complained of sexual harassment near the park but the complaints had not led to adequate corrective measures. Expressing solidarity was “not a solution to this social evil”, the bench said; accountability must be fixed on authorities.

Sources

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