The Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance
of reports of crimes against minor girls and women across Delhi-NCR and
directed police to survey vulnerable pockets and step up surveillance.
A bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice
K. Vinod Chandran directed the Delhi police commissioner, chief secretary and
other officials to furnish data on the corrective steps being taken to curb
“concerns regarding the safety and security of public spaces in and around the
city”.
The bench said the harrowing account of the
17-year-old victim of the alleged gang rape at Aastha Kunj Park in Delhi was a
stark reminder of the persistent vulnerabilities faced by women and children in
spaces that ought to be safe and accessible to all.
“This incident has also brought to light
pre-existing complaints of recurrent sexual harassment faced by students of
Lady Shri Ram College for Women, situated in the immediate vicinity of Aastha
Kunj Park. “Regrettably, these prior grievances failed to serve as a wake-up
call for the police or the local administration to rectify institutional
security lapses through enhanced patrolling and vigilance,” the bench said.
The court said it was “equally distressed” by
the reports of the alleged gang rape and murder of a teenage girl in Delhi’s
Swaroop Nagar. The police recovered the victim’s decomposed body from a field.
The bench also flagged the alleged sexual
assault of a minor girl inside a moving sleeper bus, “which law enforcement
agencies failed to intercept while it traversed a distance of over 47km from
Greater Noida to Delhi”, drawing a parallel to the 2012 Nirbhaya case.
The top court said the right to live with
dignity and free from the fear of violence was an intrinsic facet of the
fundamental guarantee of life and personal liberty enshrined under Article 21
of the Constitution.
In its interim direction, the court asked the
Delhi police commissioner to deploy dedicated teams for each police district,
headed by an officer not below the rank of a deputy superintendent of police,
to conduct an immediate survey and inspection of vulnerable pockets, including
the outskirts, isolated stretches, parks, transport hubs, markets and
educational-institution zones.
It said the audit should be based on National
Crime Records Bureau data, local intelligence, past and present complaints and
other objective indicators. The teams have to identify locations with poor
lighting, lack of surveillance, insufficient patrolling and abandoned
structures.
“A district-wise vulnerability map shall be
prepared and shared across adjoining police stations to ensure that information
on recurring patterns of crime and habitual offenders is not confined to
individual police-station jurisdictions,” the bench said, adding that all
identified public parks and vulnerable areas should be patrolled at all times.