A bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna & Justice V. Ramasubramanium asked the UPs BJP government to file an affidavit stipulating a Witness Protection Plan for the family and witnesses of the 19-year old victim who was allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men in Hathras District of Uttar Pradesh.
It also asked Solicitor General who appeared of the State of UP to find out that whether the victim’s family had chosen lawyer for their representation. The apex court further asked suggestions from all the parties as to how to make the Allahabad High Court proceedings more relevant. The UP government before pleaded to order a CBI inquiry to ensure an impartial investigation.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that there are many narratives in the public domain and the court should supervise investigation so that the meaning of investigation is not lost. Further Indira Jaising urged the court to provide protection under the provisions of the SC-ST Act and to this, the court asked the Senior Advocates locus in the present case.
When Advocate Prateek Kumar Yadav said that he was appearing for the women in the society at large and to this CJI said “Please understand that we are in no way condoning the incident, it is horrible incident but the question is how many similar arguments should we hear? Please understand that there is no need to duplicate concerns in the court of law. Court of law need not hear the same argument by every party. This is not a comment on the incident but please understand our point of view”. SG further told that the victim’s family has been instigated to give recordings in a manner so they can be used in news channels.
What happened in the case was a 19-year old Dalit woman was abducted and then was raped by four upper-caste men who then tortured her, braked her bones, and cut-off her tongue. She passed away on September 29th, 2020 and was cremated by police at night without the family’s consent.
The current plea filed says that police have not performed their duties and not the victim’s family is also victimized by the upper-class people. It also demands justice for the victim and also a fair investigation and to transfer the same to CBI or to form a SIT under sting or retired judge of SC and lastly, it demands that trial be transferred from Hathras, UP to Delhi.
