NEW DELHI: The Bihar government was on Tuesday hauled over the coals by the Supreme Court for filing a weak first information report (FIR) on the horrendous Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, and directed to add charges under Section 377 (sodomy) of the IPC and POCSO Act against the accused within a day.Though the Supreme Court has partially struck down Section 377 that banned consensual gay sex, non-consensual or consent obtained by force continues to be an offence, as is carnal intercourse with children, animals and bestiality.
“The Bihar government has registered only for minimum offence. If you haven’t registered FIR on 377, then how will you investigate?” a three-judge bench comprising justices Madan B Lokur, Deepak Gupta and Abdul Nazeer said. “Are we doing any favour to these children? Are they not citizens of this country? Why cannot every shelter home be good?”
During the hearing, senior advocate Shekhar Naphade appearing for the petitioner accused the Bihar government of going soft on the accused. “What are you doing? This is very shameful. You may have filed a detailed affidavit (in the court) but if a child is sodomised, you cannot say that it is nothing...If we find that there were offences under Section 377 of the IPC and POCSO Act and you did not register the FIR we will pass order against the state government,” the bench warned.
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, had found instances of aggravated offences in 17 shelter homes in Bihar. But criminal cases were registered only in connection with 10 under lesser charges.
At the fag end of the hearing, the bench hinted at transferring all cases to the CBI. For now, the CBI is probing only the Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes and said, “We are of the view that the police is not doing its job. We would like the CBI to deal with these allegations.”
Selective on filing FIR itself
“Your state is very selective. Out of nine (child care institutions), FIRs have been filed in five only. In four, no FIRs have been filed. Either the people there are incompetent or they are cahoots,” the bench said.