NEW DELHI: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights told the Delhi High Court on Thursday that social media posts by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi “revealing the identity” of a minor Dalit girl, raped and killed in 2021, was in violation of the law protecting the identity of the victim.
The child rights body presented its stand before the court in an affidavit filed by it on a petition seeking registration of an FIR against Gandhi for publishing a photograph with the parents of the victim that led to her identification.
“Shri Rahul Gandhi posted a picture of his meeting with the parents of the minor victim girl on his social media accounts thereafter revealing the identity of the minor girl. The tweet/post of .. Shri Rahul Gandhi is in violation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 which makes it explicitly clear that any information including family details should not be published in any form of media which could lead to the identification of any minor victim,” said the reply affidavit by NCPCR.
Besides the Juvenile Justice Act, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Indian Penal Code also make disclosing the identity of a minor victim a punishable offence, NCPCR said.
In March, the court had sought the response of NCPCR on the petition by Makarand Suresh Mhadlekar, a social activist, seeking registration of an FIR against Gandhi for allegedly revealing the identity of the minor Dalit victim, raped and murdered in 2021, by publishing a photograph with her parents on Twitter.
A nine-year-old Dalit girl died under suspicious circumstances on August 1, 2021, with her parents alleging that she was raped, murdered and cremated by a crematorium priest in southwest Delhi’s Old Nangal village. Micro-blogging website, Twitter, had earlier submitted that ‘nothing survived’ in the petition as the tweet in question has been ‘geo-blocked’ and was not available in India. Twitter’s counsel had also informed that initially Gandhi’s entire account was suspended by the social media platform but it was later restored.
On Thursday, a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula listed the petition for further hearing on November 23. In its affidavit, NCPCR said in view of the “serious offence” committed by the Congress politician, it had forwarded the complaint to Delhi Police and Twitter for removal of the post in question and taking necessary action against his Twitter handle. Subsequently, while the tweet was withheld in India, it has not been removed and is available outside the country and therefore Twitter’s inaction was contributing towards the disclosure of the identity of the victim in violation of Indian laws, the affidavit stated.
In response to the complaint, Delhi Police informed it had taken cognisance of the matter which was being
probed by its crime branch, the affidavit said.