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High Court took suo moto cognizance of sexual assault on a three-year-old girl allegedly by a cleaner working in a school in South Delhi
In a suo moto case pertaining to sexual assault on a three-year-old girl allegedly by a cleaner working in a school in South Delhi, the Delhi government's standing counsel, Santosh Tripathi on Friday proposed before the Delhi High Court that it should constitute a “permanent child safety monitoring committee”.
Tripathi submitted, "It is my request. We need a permanent child safety monitoring committee with the support of the Department of Education (DoE) because this is needed. This incident should not happen again. It was very traumatic".
A division bench comprising of CJ Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula said, "...to monitor implementation of circular dated 07.11.2017 issued by the Government of National Capital of Delhi, which is in respect of minimum standards of school safety. Mr. Tripathi seeks two weeks' time to suggest names of independent persons/ government officials who will be members of the said committee".
"We will put names of one or two retired judges of this court too", Justice Narula remarked orally.
The matter has been posted for further consideration on September 21, 2023.
In the case, on August 8, a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Saurabh Banerjee had noted, “It has been brought to the notice of this Court by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Subramonium Prasad, a news item published in the Times of India in respect of a three year old girl child who was sexually assaulted by a school cleaner in South Delhi”.
The court had said, "Let a Suo motu PIL be registered based on the newspaper report".
“Let a status report be filed positively within two weeks from today in respect of action taken in the matter by the Delhi Police as well as by the Education Department, GNCTD,” the bench had directed.
“Mr. Santosh Tripathi, learned counsel appearing on behalf of Government of NCT of Delhi, while filing the status report, will mask the name of the girl child as well as the names of the parents of the girl child, and shall undertake all necessary measures to protect the identity and right to privacy of the girl child. He shall take care that the media acts in compliance with the statutory provisions as contained in Section 23 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act), 2012”, the court had said in its order dated August 2.
According to the Times of India report, the alleged 33-year-old accused Arjun Kumar is a resident of Old Gautam Budh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. A case under sections 376 (punishment for rape) and 377 (unnatural offences) of the IPC and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been filed against Kumar.
Case Title: Court on its own motion v. Government of NCT of Delhi
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