Alarming Rise In The Number Of Reported Child Rape Incidents, In Re, Supreme Court Of India, Judgment, Law, casemine.com

Citation Codes

Equivalent Citations

citation codes

Case Number

[Connected Order (10)], (Record of Proceedings), Suo Motu Writ Petition (Crl.) No. 1 of 2019 with SLP (C) No. 34251 of 2017 and Writ Petition (C) No. 819 of 2019, Order dated October 1, 2019

Disposition

Attorney(S)

Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General, A.N.S. Nadkarni, Additional Solicitor General, Vikas Mahajan, Additional Advocate General, V. Giri (Amicus Curiae), Ms Indira Jaising and Dr Manish Singhvi, Senior Advocates [Ms S. Shankar, Ms Uttara Babbar, Ms Bhavana Duhoon, Manan Bansal, Krishna Dev Jagarlamudi, Surinder S. Rathi, Rakesh Kr. Singh, Ms Anindita Pujari (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Nidhi Sharma, Ms Pallavi Chauhan, Raman Kr. Gaur, Om Narayan, Ms Shivikka Aggarwal, Santosh Rebello, Ms Arzu Paul, Neeleshwar Pavani, Ms Suhasini Sen, Manoj V. George, Ms Shilpa Liza George, Aakarsh Kamra (Advocate-on-Record), K.M. Vignesh, S.S. Rebello, A. Paul, Raghav Sharma, Neeleshwar Pavani, Ms Shivikka Agarwal, Ms Neera Kedar Gokhale, Ms Swati G., Raj Bahadur, R.R. Rajesh, Ms Neela Gokhale, Ilam Paridi, Gurmeet Singh Makker, Abhimanyu Tewari (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Eliza Bar, Viren Sibal, Regisnalik Val Salan, Ms Diksha Rai (Advocate-on-Record), Palak Mahajan, Anil Shrivastav (Advocate-on-Record), Rituraj Biswas, Satyendra Kr. Srivastava, Dr Rajesh Pandey, Mahesh Pandey, Ms Tanuja Manjari Patra, Ms Shweta Mulchandani, Manoj Selvaraj S., Ms Aswathi M.K. (Advocate-on-Record), Vishal Prasad (Advocate-on-Record), V.N. Raghupathy (Advocate-on-Record), Monendra Pal Gupta, Sanjay Kr. Visen (Advocate-on-Record), Vinod Sharma (Advocate-on-Record), Aakash Varma, M. Shoeb Alam (Advocate-on-Record), Leishangthem Roshmani Kh. (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Anupama Ngangom, Ms Maibam Babina, Sunny Choudhary (Advocate-on-Record), Ms K. Enatoli Sema (Advocate-on-Record), Amit Kr. Singh, Ms Swarupama Chaturvedi (Advocate-on-Record), Ravi Prakash Mehrotra (Advocate-on-Record), Ankit Agarwal, Siddharth Kotwal, Ms Bansuri Swaraj, Ms Arshiya Ghose, Divyansh Tiwari, Shourajeet Chauravarty, Ms Ana Upadhyay, Ms Astha Sharma (Advocate-on-Record), Narendra Kumar (Advocate-on-Record), M. Yogesh Kanna (Advocate-on-Record), Shibashish Misra (Advocate-on-Record), S. Debabrata Reddy, Sarvesh Singh Baghel, Ms Garima Prashad (Advocate-on-Record), Pranav Kashyap, Ms Rishi Ray Sharma, Ms Saumya Jay Karan Singh, Ms Harshita Raghuvanshi, D.S. Parmar, Jatinder Kr. Bhatia (Advocate-on-Record), Ashutosh Kr. Sharma, Suhaan Mukerji, Ms Astha Sharma, Ms Kajal Dalal, Abhishek Manchanda, Prastut Dalvi, Ms Disha W., Paras Nath S., Naveen Kumar, Ms Nehmat Kaur (for M/s PLR Chambers and Co.) (Advocate-on-Record), Vinay Arora (Advocate-on-Record), Kunal Chatterji (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Maitrayee Banerjee, Saurav Gupta, Swapratik Sarkar, Ms Siddiqu A. Parveen, Guntur Prabhakar (Advocate-on-Record), Deepanwita Priyanka, A.P. Mayee, Gopal Prasad (Advocate-on-Record), Jayesh Gaurav, Ranjan Mukherjee (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Aprajita Mukherjee, K.V. Kharlyngdoh, Deniel Stone, Upendra Mishra, T.K. Nayak, K.V. Vijayakumar (Advocate-on-Record), S. Udaya Kr. Sagar (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Swati Bhardwaj, Gopal Singh (Advocate-on-Record), R.P. Gupta (Advocate-on-Record), Intervenor-in-person (Advocate-on-Record), Prem Sunder Jha (Advocate-on-Record), Milind Kumar (Advocate-on-Record), Abhinav Mukerji (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Pratishtha Vij, Ms Bihu Sharma, Samarth Khanna, Subhasish Mohanty (Advocate-on-Record), Shuvodeep Roy (Advocate-on-Record), Kabir Shankar Bose, Sataroop Das, Sumeer Sodhi (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Aarzoo Aneja, Piyush Dwivedi (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Jaspreet Gogia (Advocate-on-Record), Ms Mandakini Singh, V.G. Pragasam (Advocate-on-Record), S. Prabhu Ramasubramanian, S. Manuraj, Raghuvendra Kumar, Ms Aruna Mathur, Navendra Kumar, Avneesh Arputham, Ms Anuradha Arputham, Amit Arora (for M/s Arputham Aruna & Co.) (Advocate-on-Record), Arun R. Pedneker, Hitesh Kr. Sharma, Ms Mukti Chowdhary, Som Raj Choudhury, Mahfooz Nazki (Advocate-on-Record), Polanki Gowtham, Arvind Anand, Satyendra Kumar, Shailja Nanda Mishra, Harsha Vinoy, Arpit Parkash, G. Prakash, Jishnu M.L., Ms Priyanka Prakash, Ms Beena Prakash, Nishant R. Katneshwarkar (Advocate-on-Record), Anoop Kandari and Ms G. Indira (Advocate-on-Record), Advocates], for the appearing parties.

Judges

Deepak Gupta
Aniruddha Bose, JJ.

Acts

Section 5, Subsection 2 of the 1983 Income Tax Act

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Smart Summary

Factual and Procedural Background

The Supreme Court, in continuation of its earlier order dated 25-7-2019 (reported at (2020) 7 SCC 87), issued the present directions in Suo Motu Writ (Criminal) No. 1 of 2019. The Court is monitoring the implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) across the country. The instant order serves notice upon all State Governments and every High Court’s Registrar General, requiring them to submit specific data and compliance affidavits concerning the establishment and functioning of exclusive POCSO Courts and related infrastructure. The matter is being heard alongside SLP (C) No. 34251 of 2017 and W.P. (C) No. 819 of 2019.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether each State and High Court has complied with the Court’s prior directives to constitute exclusive POCSO Courts in districts with high case loads and to appoint Special Public Prosecutors for those courts.
Whether States have taken effective steps, as earlier ordered, to ensure that their forensic science laboratories operate efficiently for prompt investigation of POCSO offences.

Arguments of the Parties

The opinion does not contain a detailed account of the parties' legal arguments.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The Court noted that its comprehensive directions dated 25-7-2019 remained outstanding and that uniform, verifiable information from every State and High Court was essential to assess compliance. Accordingly, it:

Directed States and Registrars General to file affidavits, on or before 7-11-2019, setting out in chart form six specified data points: (1) number of districts, (2) districts with over 100 POCSO cases, (3) districts with over 200 or multiples thereof, (4) number of functioning exclusive POCSO Courts, (5) number of courts already notified, and (6) Special Public Prosecutors appointed exclusively for such courts.
Required the affidavits to be sworn personally by either the Chief Secretary or Principal Law Secretary (for States) and by the Registrar General (for High Courts), ensuring accountability at the highest administrative level.
Mandated inclusion of steps taken to make forensic science laboratories fully functional, accompanied by supporting communications.
Tasked Mr. Surinder S. Rathi (Registrar & Amicus Curiae) and assisting counsel to consolidate the data into a single comparative chart for the Court’s consideration.
Recorded the Additional Solicitor General’s statement that the Union of India would file its affidavit the same day.
Instructed the Registry to circulate both the earlier and present orders to all State counsel in SLP (C) No. 34251 of 2017 and to email them to every High Court Registrar General.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The Court ordered all States and High Courts to file detailed compliance affidavits by 7-11-2019, listed all applications (including those seeking waiver of costs) for 14-11-2019, and fixed 3-10-2019 for continuation of part-heard arguments in the connected matters.

Implications: The immediate consequence is to compel uniform data collection and expedite infrastructural and prosecutorial readiness for POCSO cases nationwide. The order strengthens ongoing judicial oversight but does not, by itself, establish a new legal precedent.

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Alarming Rise In The Number Of Reported Child Rape Incidents, In Re

Order

SMW (Crl.) No. 1 of 2019

1. Notice to all the States and the Registrars General of all the High Courts in respect of the order dated 25-7-2019 (2020) 7 SCC 87 and subsequent orders.

2. The States are aware of the said orders since the counsel representing the States are appearing in the connected matter SLP (C) No. 34251 of 2017. The States and the RGs of all the High Courts are directed to file affidavits on or before 7-11-2019 in which they will set out in chart form the following information:

1. Number of districts in the State.

2. Number of districts in which the Pocso cases are more than 100.

3. Number of districts where Pocso cases are more than 200 or multiples of 200 i.e. 400, 600, 800, etc.

4. Number of exclusive Pocso Courts already functioning, if any.

5. Number of Pocso Courts actually notified.

6. Number of Special Public Prosecutors, if any, exclusively assigned for Pocso Courts.

3. Vide order dated 25-7-2019 (2020) 7 SCC 87, a direction was given to the Directors of the State Forensic Science Laboratories and the authority concerned in the State to ensure that the existing and available forensic science laboratories in each State will function in an effective manner and the Chief Secretaries were directed to ensure that the above directions are complied with. The affidavit to be filed by the State shall also indicate what steps are taken in this regard along with the copies of the communications, if any, sent.

4. The affidavits shall be filed on the personal affidavit of the Chief Secretary or the Principal Law Secretary on behalf of the State and the RG on behalf of the High Court concerned. The affidavits must be filed on or before 7-11-2019 with advance copy to Mr Surinder S. Rathi, Registrar and the Amicus Curiae. We request Mr Rathi as well as the learned counsel assisting the Amicus Curiae to jointly prepare a chart giving details filed by all the States and the High Courts in one chart.

5. Mr A.N.S. Nadkarni, Additional Solicitor General states that affidavit on behalf of the Union of India will be filed during the course of the day.

6. The Registry is directed to supply copy of the order dated 25-7-2019 (2020) 7 SCC 87 and today's order to all the counsel representing the States in SLP (C) No. 34251 of 2017. Registry to communicate this order along with order dated 25-7-2019 (2020) 7 SCC 87 to RGs of all the High Courts by email immediately.

7. All the applications, including applications for waiver of costs shall also be taken on the next date of hearing. List on 14-11-2019.

SLP (C) No. 34251 of 2017, WP (C) No. 819 of 2019

8. Heard in part. For continuation of arguments, list on 3-10-2019 as part-heard.

Court Masters

Alarming Rise In The Number Of Reported Child Rape Incidents, In Re

Factual and Procedural Background

Legal Issues Presented

Arguments of the Parties

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

Holding and Implications

Alarming Rise In The Number Of Reported Child Rape Incidents, In Re

Comments