The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea against the release of the juvenile convict in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case on Monday.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea by the Delhi Commission for Women against the release of the juvenile convict in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case on Monday. However, the court hasn't put a stay on juvenile's scheduled release from his reform home today at 5 pm.
Swati Maliwal, the chief of the women's panel, in a last minute effort to stop the release had filed a Special Leave Petition with the Supreme Court and also met Chief Justice TS Thakur. The petition was reviewed by a two-member vacation bench of Justice AK Goel and Justice UU Lalit who scheduled the hearing for December 21.
The youngest of the six men, now 20, who gang-raped and tortured Jyoti Singh, was shifted from the reform home in the national capital earlier today to an 'undisclosed location' due to security concerns, sources said.
The parents of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh, Asha Devi and Badrinath, were removed from outside the reform home in Delhi on Sunday where they were protesting against the release. They were taken to the Maurice Nagar police station and let go after about an hour.
Jyoti was called Nirbhaya or fearless as she battled her grievous injuries in hospital, before dying 13 days after she was brutally attacked by six men on the night of December 16, 2012.
Of the six men convicted, one died in jail while four have been sentenced to death. The youngest was several months short of 18, the age at which a person can be tried as an adult, and he was sent to a remand home for three years.
He is likely to be monitored by the Juvenile Justice Board, which will decide on his rehabilitation, "social mainstreaming", and even whether he should be returned to his family. The post-care policy has to be formulated by the Juvenile Justice Board and the Delhi Government in consultation with the convict and his family.
The man's punishment is seen as disproportionate to the enormity of his crime by many and has led to a debate about whether India is too soft on teen offenders involved in serious crimes like rape and murder.
Jyoti's parents have spent the last three years demanding that the juvenile not be released. After the high court's ruling on December 18, Asha Devi said, "A criminal who committed a heinous crime has been let off by the Court and the Government. The assurance that we were given that we will get justice has not happened."