The Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognizance of recent cases of rape in Delhi-NCR, including a gangrape in a park and the alleged sexual assault of a minor inside a moving sleeper bus in Delhi.

A bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran observed that they were distressed by the news reports regarding recurring sexual offences in the National Capital Region, and stressed the need to fix accountability.

In the order, the bench referred to the gangrape and murder of a teenage girl in Swarup Nagar in Delhi, where the police recovered the victim's decomposed body in a field. Referring to the sexual assault of a minor in a moving sleeping bus, which the police failed to intercept during its travel of 47 kilometres from Greater Noida to Delhi, the Court said that “one cannot help but draw painful parallels to the Nirbhaya incident of 2012.”

These incidents raise the question whether the systematic law enforcement mechanisms have made any meaningful progress since the Nirbhaya case, the Court observed.

"These incidents considered alongside other recent reports of sexual offences across Delhi-NCR starkly underline a systematic failure on the part of the law enforcement and the public administrative authorities to guarantee basic public safety," the bench observed.

The right to live with dignity free from the fear of violence is an intrinsic facet of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. Public spaces, including roads, parks, buses, metro stations, subways, footbridges, cannot be permitted to become "zones of high risk" due to grossly inadequate illumination, poor surveillance, lack of patrolling and other preventable administrative deficiencies.

The bench stated that the statements made by public authorities and elected representatives expressing concerns and solidarity are not enough, and said accountability had to be fixed for failures that contributed to such incidents.

“Expressions of solidarity devoid of accountability fall short of answering the larger institutional question. Expressing solidarity is not a solution to this social evil. What is required is a measurable response with the responsibility and accountability fixed upon authorities entrusted with the prevention of crimes, maintenance of public order and protection of vulnerable persons," the bench observed.

The Bench directed that a suo motu case be registered to examine the issue.