Nirbhaya Fund lip service if money not put to use: SC

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 26

The Supreme Court today said the Rs 2,000-crore Nirbhaya Fund meant for payment of compensation to victims of rape and other forms of sexual abuse would remain a “lip service” unless it was put to use effectively.

A Vacation Bench comprising Justices PC Pant and DY Chandrachud made the remark while issuing notice to all states, directing them to furnish within six weeks the schemes they had put in place for such victims and for preventing crimes of this nature.

The Bench passed the order after senior advocate Indira Jaisingh, assisting the SC in a case arising from nine PILs on the issue, pleaded that the states were not giving necessary information to her. Formulated by the Centre in the wake of the gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in Delhi on December 16, 2012, and her subsequent death, the Nirbhaya scheme provides for compensation to victims.

Jaisingh told the Bench that the states were supposed to set up one-stop crisis centres in each district for helping rape survivors, but they had not furnished information if they had done so. As many as 653 such crisis centres were supposed to be in place across the country.

While some of the states were paying Rs 10 lakh, others were giving as little as Rs 25,000 or slightly more, she noted. There was also a need to provide protection to witnesses in such cases to increase the conviction rate that was abysmally low due to witnesses turning hostile during the trial, mainly due to threats from the accused, the amicus said.

Another aspect that required urgent action was a regulatory mechanism for the application-based taxi service providers across the country to effectively check sexual crimes. There was also a need for proper implementation of the existing laws such as the ban on use of tinted glasses in vehicles, she said.