Supreme Court Takes Suo Motu Cognizance Of Recent Delhi-NCR Rape Cases, Flags ‘Systematic Failure’ In Public Safety

The Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran said it was distressed by reports of recurring sexual offences in the National Capital Region and stressed the need to fix accountability for failures contributing to such incidents.

In its order, the Bench referred to the gangrape and murder of a teenage girl in Swarup Nagar, Delhi, whose decomposed body was recovered by the police from a field.

The Court also referred to the alleged sexual assault of a minor inside a moving sleeper bus, which travelled around 47 kilometres from Greater Noida to Delhi without being intercepted by the police.

“One cannot help but draw painful parallels to the Nirbhaya incident of 2012,” the Court observed.

The Bench questioned whether systematic law enforcement mechanisms had made any meaningful progress since the Nirbhaya case.

“These incidents considered alongside other recent reports of sexual offences across Delhi-NCR starkly underline a systematic failure on the part of the law enforcement and the public administrative authorities to guarantee basic public safety,” the Court said.

The Court emphasised that the right to live with dignity and without fear of violence was an intrinsic facet of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

It further observed that public spaces, including roads, parks, buses, metro stations, subways and footbridges, could not be permitted to become “zones of high risk” because of inadequate illumination, poor surveillance, lack of patrolling or other preventable administrative deficiencies.

The Bench also stressed that expressions of concern and solidarity by public authorities and elected representatives could not substitute accountability. “Expressions of solidarity devoid of accountability fall short of answering the larger institutional question. Expressing solidarity is not a solution to this social evil,” the Court observed.

The Bench said what was required was a measurable response, with responsibility and accountability fixed upon authorities entrusted with preventing crimes, maintaining public order and protecting vulnerable persons.

The Court thereafter directed that a suo motu case be registered to examine the issue.