SC REJECTS PLEA TO BLOCK RELEASE OF 2012 RAPE CONVICT
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court declined on Monday to block the release of the youngest offender in the December 16 Delhi gang rape, saying laws framed by Parliament didn’t permit further detention despite growing calls for harsher penalties for juvenile criminals.
The top court’s rejection of the DCW’s plea also resonated in Parliament with leaders cutting across party lines backing proposed amendments to the juvenile justice bill that seeks stringent punishment for children aged 16-18 years involved in heinous crimes.
With only two days to go before the winter session ended, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said “the government is ready and very keen to pass this juvenile bill”.
The bill has already been passed in the Lok Sabha and is listed for Tuesday in the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress and the Trinamool Congress are likely to support it.
“It is incumbent upon the House to listen to what is going on outside. It is not a perfect bill but let us list it and pass the bill,” Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien said.
Earlier in the day, a vacation bench of justices AK Goel and UU Lalit said it shared the concerns raised by the Delhi Commission for Women but had to go by the “mandate of the law” which allowed his release after a three-year stay in correctional facility — the maximum for an underage criminal.
“We share your concern. But, we have to enforce the law. There is no legislative sanction — which prescribes a maximum of three years of detention for a juvenile convict — under which we can allow his further detention. We are sorry,” the SC said.
The top court also took a dig at the Union government for supporting the appeal in the absence of an appropriate law. “You are supporting them (DCW) without changing the law. There has to be legislative mandate. Where is it?” the bench asked additional solicitor general Pinky Anand, who urged the bench to interpret the law in public interest. “But, won’t that interpretation amount to taking away his rights under Article 20 and 21 (right to life and liberty),” the bench asked both DCW counsel Guru Krishnakumar and Anand.The top court also declined the DCW request to constitute an independent body to ascertain the convict’s mental condition, saying the Delhi high court was already looking into it.
The convict, now 20, escaped the gallows as he was months short of his 18th birthday when arrested for the brutal gang rape of a medical student in 2012, an incident that shook the nation and triggered sweeping changes in the country’s rape laws. Four of his co-accused are on death row. Minutes after the decision, the victim’s mother said she knew the SC wouldn’t block the convict’s release. “We haven’t got any justice. It is very difficult to change laws in India,” she told reporters. “Women have always been cheated in this country and are still being cheated, even today.” DCW chief Swati Maliwal also reacted sharply to the decision, calling the release a “black day for women”.
Personally present in court, she told mediapersons that the days for candle light protests were over.