December 16 juvenile verdict: Justice not delivered, says Nirbhaya’s mother Dec 18
Questioning the role of the Indian and Delhi state governments, the parents of December 16 gang rape victim Sunday asked why they did not take action earlier to stop the imminent release of the juvenile convict.
The government said that as per the plan, a one-time financial grant of Rs 10,000 will be given to the youth and a sewing machine will be arranged for him so that he can rent a tailor shop. And when it comes to juveniles, the law seeks to ensure that young people who run afoul of it may be guided by logic rather than politics, prejudice, and uninformed passion. Nor is there any today.
– The parents of Nirbhaya (the name of the victim) have chose to lead a protest against juvenile’s release on Sunday near India Gate at 1pm. “The court is bigger than us”, said Badrinath, Jyoti Singh’s father.
But on Friday, the court said the convict could not be kept in the correctional home because he had served the maximum term possible under the law.
It will thus take a massive leap of faith for a society, already feeling shortchanged by the legal system, to assume that the convict will not turn against it again given a second chance.
Six persons, including the juvenile, had brutally assaulted and raped a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus in south Delhi, leaving her with extensive internal injuries.
The final call on the man’s release would be made by a management panel of the Juvenile Justice Board after assessing if he had been “socially mainstreamed”, Swamy told Reuters. The juvenile was sentenced to three years in a reform home. “We requested them (the protesters) not to assemble at the high-security area and when they refused, they were detained under Section 144 CrPC”, said a senior police officer.
“According to rules of the Juvenile Justice Act, he can be left out from the custody of the Juvenile Justice Board but he cannot be released as free person till a management committee appointed for the objective decides whether he is mentally sound, whether he has socially main-streamed and whether he has reformed”, Swamy said.
Releasing the juvenile would simply incentivise them.