Delhi Cantt Rape Case: High Court Asks Crime Branch To File Status Report On Investigation

The Delhi High Court has sought status report on the investigation carried out in the case of alleged gang-rape and murder of a 9-years-old girl in Delhi's Cantt area.

The development comes in a plea filed by the victim's parents, seeking Court monitored SIT investigation and judicial enquiry into alleged lapses in administrative action, delayed filing of FIR.

Justice Yogesh Khanna was apprised by the State that the case has been transferred to the Crime Branch and that adequate round clock security was being provided to the victim's parents. Additionally, it was also informed that a SIT has already been constituted which is being monitored by DCP and Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police.

It was also informed that two accused persons have admitted to the crime and that the charges of rape and murder under IPC and other charges under POCSO Act and SC/ST Act have been added in the FIR.

In view of this, the Court sought a status report from the respondents on the probe conducted so far. The same has to be submitted by the next date of hearing, i.e., November 8.

With regard to the prayer of petitioners seeking judicial enquiry into alleged administrative lapses, the Respondents submitted that since the investigation in the matter was at a nascent stage, the aforesaid prayer should only be considered after the investigation is concluded.

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 stated 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 alleged 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 averred.

The parents also alleged 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 read.

Stating that the truth can only 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?

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.