New Delhi: Amid Rahul Gandhi's conviction in the Modi surname remarks case of 2019, the Delhi High Court on Friday asked the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to file its response over a plea seeking the registration of an FIR against the Congress leader for allegedly revealing the identity of a Dalit rape and murder victim.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sachin Datta issued notice to and granted the NCPCR four weeks to file a counter-affidavit in response to the petition. Gandhi is accused to have revealed the identity of the Dalit girl who was raped and killed in 2021, by posting on Twitter a photo with her parents.
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The Dalit girl died under suspicious circumstances on August 1, 2021, with her parents alleging that she was raped, murdered and cremated by a crematorium's priest in southwest Delhi's Old Nangal village. The Delhi High Court has listed the matter for further hearing on July 27. In its petition, the petitioner urged the Delhi High Court to issue a notice to the NCPCR to file its response in the matter.
The petitioner said that despite Twitter's claim to have taken down Gandhi's alleged tweet, the offence of making such disclosure survives. The petition was submitted by one Makarand Suresh Mhadlekar, a social activist. Mhadlekar moved the high court in 2021 claiming that by posting the photo with the parents of the child victim, Gandhi violated the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, which prohibit the disclosure of the identity of minor victims of sexual offences.
In its reply, Twitter had contested that "nothing survived" in the petition as the tweet in question had been "geo-blocked" and was not available in India.
