New Delhi: In the suo motu case of alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl by a suspended Delhi government official, the Delhi High Court on Thursday sought various authorities’ suggestions on the preparation of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be followed in cases involving minors.
On August 28, the high court had taken suo motu cognisance of a case involving suspended Delhi government official Premoday Khakha and his wife for the the sexual assault and subsequent termination of pregnancy of a minor girl.
During the hearing on Thursday, the division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula asked several authorities — Child Welfare Committee (CWC), National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Delhi government’s Department of Women and Child Development, Delhi Police and Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) — to participate in the meeting for drafting an SOP.
Additional standing counsel Rupali Bandhopadhya for Delhi Police apprised the court that she has filed a status report, which the court said was not on record and asked her to place it on record.
The bench also impleaded DCPCR as a party to the petition and asked it to place on record the steps taken by it in the case.
The next hearing has been listed for October 6.
In the last hearing, the court had asked the Delhi Police to file a status report and ensure protection of the minor girl’s identity. The Delhi Police had apprised the court about the critical health condition of the young victim.
On August 21, the Delhi Police had arrested 51-year-old Khakha, who had been suspended as deputy director in the Women and Child Development Department of Delhi government, and his wife after questioning them for several hours at their residence.
The move came after the victim recorded her statement before a magistrate at a city hospital.
The couple is a resident of Shakti Enclave in the Burari area. The accused allegedly raped the victim repeatedly between 2020 and 2021. A police source said the accused kept on raping the minor daughter of his friend for months, during which his wife also allegedly assisted him.
“The most shocking part is that when the victim got pregnant, she was threatened with dire consequences by the accused. When the accused narrated the matter to his wife, instead of helping the victim, the woman sent her son to buy abortion pills, which she gave to the victim,” the source had said.
The victim had met the accused at a church. Later, after befriending the girl, the accused took her to his house on the pretext of helping her. In 2020, the father of the victim passed away, after which she went into depression.
