Nirbhaya fund only lip service if funds remain unutilised: SC

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 26 

The Supreme Court on Thursday 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 the 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 by six men in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 and her subsequent death 13 days later, the Nirbhaya scheme provides for payment of 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.

The Bench was hearing a plea by the main petitioners, Nipun Saxena and others, seeking a directive to the states to provide necessary details on as many as 10 aspects meant for dealing with rape cases effectively.

Jaisingh pleaded that the states should be directed to pay reasonable compensation to the victims. 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 for providing protection to witnesses in such cases to increase the conviction rate which 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 such as Uber and Ola 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.