Delhicourtconvicts19for Biharhome sexualabuse

Thakur guilty of rape; sentencing hearing on Jan 28

NEWDELHI/PATNA:A court in Delhi convicted on Monday 19 people, including key accused Brajesh Thakur, in a one-and-half-yearold case of sexual and physical assault on underage girls at a shelter home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, delivering its judgment in the scandal that sparked countrywide outrage and led to the ouster of a state minister.

Thakur, whose non-governmental organisation (NGO) owned the shelter home, and four others, including Dilip Kumar Verma, a former chairperson of the state’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC), were found guilty of aggravated sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, criminal conspiracy, rape and gang rape, among other offences.

One person was acquitted by additional sessions judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha, who said arguments on the sentencing of the 19 convicts — 11 men and eight women — will be heard on January 28. Five former employees of the shelter home, two former members of the child welfare panel and two officials of the

Bihar social welfare department are among those convicted.

The maximum sentence that can be handed to Thakur is life imprisonment for the remainder of his life, according to legal experts. The amendment to the POCSO Act, which introduced death penalty for sexually abusing minors below 12 years in 2019,

will not be applicable because the case dates back to 2018, said advocate Prabhsahay Kaur. The home came under the spotlight after Tata Institute of Social Sciences submitted an audit report to the Bihar government’s social welfare department in April 2018.

Kumar Gupta, one of the four men convicted in the December 2012 gang rape, need not be treated as a juvenile, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, dismissing a petition filed by the death row convict arguing that he was less than 18 years old at the time the offence was committed.

A bench, headed by justice R Banumathi, rejected Gupta’s appeal against a judgment of the Delhi high court, which had turned down his petition on December 19, 2019.

The top court made it clear that the plea of juvenility under the Juvenile Justice Act cannot be re-agitated after the issue was raised and rejected earlier.

The apex court noted that Gupta’s claim of juvenility was rejected by the Metropolitan Magistrate in 2013, Delhi high court in 2014 and the Supreme Court in 2018.