Establish one-stop centres for registration of crimes against women in every district: Delhi High Court to government

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Delhi government to establish ‘one-stop centres’ in every district where all crimes against women and children can be registered..A Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad passed the direction while noting that the same was mandated by the Supreme Court in its December 2018 order passed in Nipun Saxena v. Union of India.“In fact, the State Governments are already in contempt in not adhering to the time limit fixed by the Apex Court in setting up such centres within one year from the date of the judgment passed by the Apex Court which was passed on 11.12.2018,” the High Court said..The apex court had directed that these centres be established in each district of the country, and that they should have trained staff, psychiatrists on call as well as video conferencing to record statements of the survivors among other facilities.In Tuesday's judgment, the High Court also directed the Delhi government to lay down clear-cut criteria to be adopted for revealing the identities of victims of sexual crimes when the same is required, which was also mandated by the Supreme Court in Nipun Saxena..The High Court passed the directions while disposing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by one Yashdeep Chahal filed in the year 2019 seeking action against media houses for revealing the identity of a rape victim in Hyderabad.After hearing the case, the Bench noted that the Supreme Court has already laid down guidelines in this regard and passed several directions.“The Apex Court has categorically stated that the press can report that the case was fixed before court and some witnesses were examined, it can also report as to for what purpose the case was listed but it cannot report what transpired inside the court or what was the statement of the victim or the witnesses.”The Bench was informed by Amicus Curiae that a similar issue regarding compensation to the victims and criminal action under Section 228-A IPC is pending before the High Court of Telangana.Since the same issue is pending before the Telangana High Court, the Court said that it was not for it to to initiate proceedings against media houses and reported individuals or to direct the investigating authorities to take cognizance of the offence. Therefore, the plea was disposed of..Advocates Chirag Madan, G Sai Krishna Kumar, Ravleen Sabarwal, Smirdhi Sharma and Deepesh Bahadur appeared for the petitioner.Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Advocates Ajay Digpaul, Amit Gupta, Kamal Digpaul, Sahaj Garg and Swati Kwatra appeared for the Central governmentSenior Advocate Rebecca John acted as Amicus. She was assisted by Advocates Chinmay Kanojia, Praavita Kashyap, Adya R Luthra and Anushka Baruah.Advocates Nitin Sharma, Sumant Narang, Ranjeet Singh Sindhu, Nisha Bhambani, Rajat Arora, Mariya Shahab, Atul Batra, Kundan Mishra, Shahrukh Ejaz, Harnek Kaur, Tejas Karia, Gauhar Mirza, Amee Rana, Thejesh Rajendran, Saransh Jain, Shloka Narayanan, Abhishek Kumar and Sneha Dey appeared for other respondents. .[Read Order]