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The Supreme Court of the country has adopted a very strict and sensitive stance on the heinous incidents that are continuously being reported against women and minors in public transport and parks in the country’s capital Delhi and the adjacent National Capital Region (NCR). The Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognizance of the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old minor girl inside a private sleeper bus in Delhi-NCR and other recent cases. Taking cognizance of the media reports, a special bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran has sought immediate response from the Delhi Police and the concerned investigating agencies.
Expressing extreme pain and displeasure during the hearing, the apex court said that this repeated failure of law enforcement agencies and government officials reflects a serious systemic failure. Making a scathing comment, the court said that even after so many years of the historic and soul-stirring Nirbhaya incident of 2012, if the same horrifying scene is being repeated on the streets of the capital, then it is natural to raise the question whether our system has really learned any lesson from that tragedy. The bench underlined that the fundamental right of every citizen of the country to live a dignified and violence-free life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution is still unsafe on the roads.
A division bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran made it clear that public parks, roads and buses of Delhi-NCR cannot be allowed to turn into “high-risk zones” for common citizens. The court mentioned several heinous incidents that took place recently in the capital region. The bench made special mention of the gang rape of a 17-year-old girl by three criminals at the famous Aastha Kunj Park near Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, where the accused, posing as policemen, had held the girl hostage and committed the crime.
Apart from this, the court, citing the brutal murder of a minor in Swaroop Nagar area and the sexual assault in a moving bus coming from Greater Noida to Delhi, said that these incidents are not isolated incidents, but show that the basic system of policing at public places has completely collapsed. The court said that when such barbarity takes place around the residential areas and posh complexes of the capital, it creates deep fear and distrust regarding security in the minds of the entire civil society.
According to the official details of the case, the 16-year-old victim had boarded a private sleeper bus from Greater Noida towards Noida on August 4. During this time, the driver and conductor of the bus found the girl alone and allegedly brutalized and gang-raped her inside the moving bus. After this horrific incident of brutality, the accused threw the victim on the road in an abandoned and destitute condition near Kashmere Gate Bus Stand (ISBT) in Old Delhi, more than 40 kilometers away from the place where she boarded the bus and fled away.
In this case, the police took immediate action and arrested both the main accused. Earlier, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had also taken suo motu cognizance of this inhuman incident. The Human Rights Commission had issued notices to the Delhi Police Commissioner, Gautam Buddha Nagar Police Commissioner and Mainpuri Superintendent of Police, seeking a detailed report regarding the progress of the investigation, the status of the charge sheet and the compensation and rehabilitation given to the victim girl. Now, after the direct intervention of the Supreme Court, the investigation of this entire matter has come under the purview of highest judicial monitoring.
This shocking case has exposed the security arrangements, permit rules and administrative monitoring of private sleeper buses running on Delhi-NCR and interstate routes. Preliminary technical and physical investigation conducted by the police has found several serious safety violations inside the bus. According to investigating officials, the mandatory CCTV camera system of the bus in which the crime took place was completely switched off and lying inactive, due to which live recording of the incident could not be recorded. Apart from this, many previous traffic challans were pending on the concerned bus and rules were being openly violated.
The investigation team is now probing in depth the circumstances under which the bus operators had hired these drivers and conductors without any police verification (background check) and character certificate. The police are closely interrogating the owners and management of the bus company. Forensic experts have collected vital biological evidence and fingerprints from inside the bus, which have been sent to the lab for DNA testing so that irrefutable scientific evidence can be presented against the accused in the court. After the tough stance of the Supreme Court, now the administrative process of intensive verification of all private buses running in Delhi-NCR and setting strict safety standards is expected to speed up.