New Delhi: With the juvenile convict all set to walk free on Sunday, December 20 at 5 pm from the reform home, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea by the Delhi Commission for Women against the release of the juvenile convict in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case on Monday.
Swati Maliwal, the chief of the women’s panel, in a last minute effort to stop the release had filed a Special Leave Petition with the Supreme Court and also met Chief Justice TS Thakur. The petition was reviewed by a two-member vacation bench of Justice AK Goel and Justice UU Lalit who scheduled the hearing for December 21.
Due to security concerns, it is said that the juvenile, now 20-years-old has been shifted from reform home to an undisclosed location. The parents of the Delhi gang-rape, who were protesting outside the reform home were taken to Maurice Nagar Police station and were let to go after about an hour.
Jyoti was called Nirbhaya or fearless as she battled her grievous injuries in hospital, before dying 13 days after she was brutally attacked by six men on the night of December 16, 2012.
Of the six men convicted, one died in jail while four have been sentenced to death. The youngest was several months short of 18, the age at which a person can be tried as an adult, and he was sent to a remand home for three years.
The young man’s punishment is seen as disproportionate to the enormity of his crime by many and has led to a debate about whether India is too soft on teen offenders involved in serious crimes like rape and murder.
Jyoti’s parents have spent the last three years demanding that the juvenile not be released. After the high court’s ruling on December 18, Asha Devi said, “A criminal who committed a heinous crime has been let off by the Court and the Government. The assurance that we were given that we will get justice has not happened.”
