Rising incidents of child rape and a growing perception of slack law enforcement spurred the Supreme Court to suo motu register a PIL and take it up for hearing on Friday to attempt to shape a concerted and clear national response displaying ‘zero tolerance’ towards sexual assault of children.
Disturbed by a clutch of media reports on recurring incidents of sexual assault on children of all ages, including infants, CJI Ranjan Gogoi on July 1 asked the registry to submit a report on two aspects — number of such cases registered across India since January 1, stages of investigation and time taken to file a chargesheet; and pendency in trial courts.
Data collected through all high courts and compiled by the registry reveal a depressing picture about the law lacking a deterrent effect on offenders. The registry’s report, accompanying the collated data sheet, said the CJI had rightly concluded on the “need for intervention in shaping concerted, persistent and clear national response, displaying ‘zero tolerance’ for such abhorrent and horrifying behaviour towards our children, by the criminal justice administration and its constituents in India."
While placing analysis of the data before the CJI, the registry’s report said, “Recent reports in both national and international media have sought to highlight an alarming rise in the number of reported child-rape incidents which, the media reports have claimed, suggest that somewhere the deterrent effect of laws and their effective enforcement, to prosecute offenders accused of child-rape, appear to be missing in the scheme of criminal justice administration.”