Delhi Cantt Case: Parents Of 9-Yr-Old Victim Move High Court Seeking SIT Probe, Judicial Enquiry Into Alleged Administrative Lapse

A plea has been filed before the Delhi High Court by parents of the 9 year old minor girl, allegedly gang-raped and murdered in Delhi Cantt area, seeking Court monitored SIT investigation. The plea also seeks judicial enquiry into alleged lapses in administrative action, delayed filing of FIR.

The plea filed through Advocates Jitendra Kumar Jha, Sarsij Nayanam and Suresh Kumar will be heard tomorrow by Justice Yogesh Khanna.

A nine-year-old girl was allegedly raped and killed by a priest and three employees of a crematorium near Delhi Cantonment in southwest Delhi.

The plea states that the minor victim, playing at the Mazar, went inside the crematorium for drinking water. Later, when the victim's mother searched for her daughter, she was told by the accused persons that the victim died due to electrocution.

The plea alleges that the accused persons even tried to bribe the minor victim's parents, by offering them Rs. 20,000.

"That when the petitioners who have immense faith in the judicial system, did not agree for adhering to the ploy of the accused persons, then the accused persons forcefully thrown the body of the daughter in a burning pyre," the plea further avers.

The parents also allege that the primary focus of the police was to sabotage the case and that they were tortured and pressurized by the police for compromising the matter.

"That delay in registration of FIR that too under diluted offences itself indicates that the police did not want to give justice to the petitioners," the plea reads.

Stating that the truth can oy be unearthed by way of a SIT investigation, the plea poses the following questions to be answered:

- Why did the Police reach on the spot with delay when the Police station is barely a kilometre away from the place of incident? 

- Why there was a delay in registration of FIR? Why the petitioners were tortured and threatened in the police station to compromise the matter?

- Why the police failed to preserve the place of crime and vital evidences?

- Why the administration failed to give protection to the petitioners and its witnesses?

- Why the police failed to take Police Custody of the accused persons for the purpose of investigation in the initial 9 days of their arrest?

Apart from seeking a SIT investigation and judicial enquiry into lapse in administrative actions, the plea also seeks directions on Delhi Government and Commissioner of Police to provide safety and security to the parents and witnesses in the matter.

Delhi Police had registered a case against four accused on the basis of the statement of the minor's mother who alleged that her daughter was raped, murdered and cremated without their consent.

The accused persons have been booked under Sections 302, 304, 376, 341, 506, 201 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, along with sec. 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and sec. 3 of SC/ST Act.

In a recent development, a Delhi Court had ordered Rs. 2.5 lakh interim compensation to the victim's family after an application was moved under Section 357A of CrPC.

Case Title: Sunita & Anr. v. State of NCT of Delhi & Ors.