Dec 16 gangrape: SC declines urgent hearing to stop juvenile

New Delhi, Dec 20: Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal late on Saturday filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court against the release of the juvenile convict in Nirbhaya gang rape case. The apex court has decided to hear the petition on Monday, Dec 21.

Maliwal along with a legal team approached the court late night and filed the petition.

"After going though the matter, Chief Justice of India has sent the case to the judges of vacation bench comprising Justice Adarsh Goel and Justice Uday Lalit," Maliwal told reporters.

"The court has accepted the case and listed it as the item number 3 which is to be heard on Monday," she said.

"Since the case has been registered, the matter is sub-judice now and hence the Nirbhaya rapist should not be released on Sunday," she said. "I hope the juvenile convict in Nirbhaya gang rape case is kept in juvenile home until the case is heard."

In the petition, DCW has pitched for not releasing the juvenile convict until his mental reformation is ascertained.

"The government of India in its stand submitted that there is no material to establish that the mental state of the respondent has been reformed. His behaviour and attitude in the special home confirmed by the government agencies is that the respondent continues to have criminal/perverse bent of mind which poses a serious threat to women...," DCW wrote in its petition.

"Thus releasing the said respondent without even calling for an assessment of his mental state may be extremely dangerous to the society," the petition said.

The convict in Nirbhaya gang rape case is now 20 years old. He was a juvenile in 2012 when he committed the heinous crime along with his friends in a moving bus in the capital.

The court found him guilty of raping and assaulting the victim, who later died in hospital, along with five accomplices.

Due to being a juvenile when the crime was committed, he was tried under the Juvenile Justice Act and was ordered to be kept in a remand home for three years. He was to be released on December 20.

IANS