Why can’t your ads speak about sex offences, HC asks Delhi govt
New Delhi, August 22
Mocking AAP Government’s “self-promoting” endorsements, the Delhi High wondered why it couldn’t plan advertisements to help deter sex crimes instead.
The remarks, made by a Division Bench of Justices Kailash Gambhir and Sunita Gupta, came after the Delhi Government claimed that they were forced to pull out programmes on sex crimes due to lack of audience for them.
Kejriwal government’s ads, which have taglines that claim ‘Wo pareshaan karte rahe, hum kaam karte rahe’ (They troubled us, but we worked), have been a topic of great debate, with several people calling their ads means of propaganda for the party.
The high court, which has previously criticised the Central and Delhi governments for its sluggish campaigns against such crimes, once against pulled them up for what it called their apathy towards sexual offences.
"We again lay emphasis on the fact that these mass awareness programmes through audio and visual medium need to be launched at a war-footing. To date, we find that the respondents (Centre and Delhi government) could not bring out any documentary or short film to sensitise the people, deter perpetrators of such crime and to make everybody aware of their rights despite explicit directions from this court," the Bench said.
The two governments have until the court’s next hearing to produce a documentary on the subject.
Statistics suggest 3,09,546 crimes against women were reported in 2013 alone, up from the previous year’s 244,270.
"The total number of rape cases reported in India has gone up to 33,707 in 2013 from 24,923 in 2012. In 15,556 cases, the rape victims were aged between 18 and 30 years in 2013. A total of 58,224 cases of crimes against children were reported in the country during 2013. NCRB statistics also show that in 94 per cent of the cases, the offenders were familiar to the accused," the court, citing the Nation Crime Record Bureau’s figures, attributing this rise to lack of awareness about sexual offences and poor knowledge of legal consequences of such crimes.
The Bench was hearing an appeal of a man who has been convicted for raping his minor daughter. — PTI
