Juvenile Accused Treated 'Too Leniently' in India; No Lessons Learned from Nirbhaya Case: HC

Observing that Indian law, while treating juveniles accused of rape far too leniently, no lessons have been learnt even though more than a decade has elapsed since the horrific Nirbhaya gang rape incident, the Madhya Pradesh high court dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of the four absconding Delhi gang-rape accused - Vijay, Chhhotu, Pankaj and Shivaji, issuing notices to them instead directing them to surrender by tomorrow. "Juveniles in this country are being treated rather too leniently and that the Legislature, to the utter misfortune of the victims of such crimes, has still not learnt any lessons from the horrors of Nirbhaya", the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh high court said while upholding the conviction of a juvenile for the rape of a four-year-old girl.

While the verdict in the case was pronounced by the single bench court headed by Justice Subodh Abhyankar on Wednesday, the copy was available only on Saturday. Recalling that the constitutional courts in the country have time and again favored strongly for stricter laws against the juvenile-accused, the court lamented that the legislature has not so far taken any initiative in this regard.

The present case is that of four-year old gang rape committed upon a girl by a juvenile. It was in the month of December 2017 that the incident happened. The accused was son of the landlord, who used to come to the house of the tenant and raped the minor girl. Feeling the cry of her child, the mother rushed to the spot and found her unconscious on the bed. Then, she found the accused standing beside the victim. The accused then ran away. Then the mother realized that her daughter was bleeding through her private parts.

The juvenile was convicted by the trial court under the relevant provisions of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Protection of Children from Sexual Act, 2012 (POCSO) and sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment. However, the juvenile started absconding from the observation home from November 2019 and is still untraced so far. The father of the juvenile thereafter filed a criminal appeal in the high court against the verdict of the trial court in the case.

While observing, the high court further added that "Looking at the overwhelming medical evidence available in the present case, it does not take an expert to see as to how demonic the appellant's (the juvenile's) conduct was while he was juvenile, and his mindset can also be gathered from the fact that he has also absconded from the observation home, and presently is at large, probably lurking in some corner of the street, for yet another prey, and there is nobody to stop him".