The Supreme Court on Friday registered a suo motu PIL on the rise in child rape cases and a corresponding lack of infrastructure and delay in the probe and trial of these cases.
A Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said the Supreme Court had prepared a list of child rape cases in the past six months, from January to June 2019, and found that out of the 24,000 cases lodged in this period, only 900 had completed trial and disposed of.
The court appointed senior advocate V. Giri as amicus curiae and listed the case on Monday. The court said it wanted suggestions on the setting up of special courts, prosecutors and exclusive investigation of these cases to render victims speedy justice. The government, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, also intervened with an assurance to assist the court in the endeavour.
The Bench directed the apex court registry to register the case as a writ petition titled “In-re Alarming Rise in The Number of Reported Child Rape Incidents”.
Chief Justice Gogoi said he had asked the registry to file a report on two aspects such as the total number of rape cases involving child registered across India since January 1 and the stage of investigation and the time taken to file a charge sheet as also the status of trials. Details were collected from all the States and high courts.
Referring to the data on sexual crimes against children, the court’s report said that from January 1 to June 30, 24,212 FIRs have been filed across India. Of these, 11,981 are still being probed by the police and in 12,231 cases, the police have filed chargesheets.
