Rahul Gandhi violated the law by disclosing the identity of a minor rape victim, the NCPCR informs the Delhi High Court

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) informed the Delhi High Court on Thursday that postings by Congressman Rahul Gandhi “revealing the identity” of a young Dalit girl who was raped and died in 2021 violated the statute preserving the victim’s identity.

In an affidavit it filed in response to a petition asking for the registration of a FIR against Gandhi for publishing a photo with the victim’s parents that led to her identification, the child rights organization provided its position to the bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula.

“Shri Rahul Gandhi revealed the identify of the little victim girl after posting a photo of his meeting with her parents on his social media sites. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 explicitly states that any information, including family details, should not be published in any form of media if it could lead to the identification of any minor victim, and Shri Rahul Gandhi’s tweet/post is in violation of those provisions, according to the reply affidavit by NCPCR.

The bench was hearing a petition asking the court to order the NCPCR and Commissioner of Police Delhi to prosecute the former Congress president for publishing a photo of the victim’s parents on his Twitter account, @RahulGandhi, which revealed private information about a rape victim and her family.

In October 2022, the NCPCR claimed that Rahul Gandhi had violated the law by exposing private information regarding a rape victim. If the NCPCR were given notice, the Commission would back the petitioner in their demand for harsh punishment for the Congressman.

Only Twitter had previously received a notice from the High Court. The message was then deleted, according to Twitter’s reaction. Additionally, it was claimed that the juvenile Dalit girl’s parents had approved of Rahul Gandhi posting their picture on the microblogging website.

According to the complaint made by Makarand Suresh Mhadlekar, Gandhi’s actions breached Sections 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 and Section 23(2) of the POCSO Act of 2012, both of which prohibit disclosing the identify of a child victim of a crime.

The parents of the nine-year-old Dalit girl claimed that she was raped, killed, and cremated by a cremation priest in southwest Delhi’s Old Nangal hamlet on August 1, 2021, under strange circumstances.

According to the petition submitted by attorneys Gautam Jha, Pankaj Kumar, and Shweta Jha, the law is very well-established in this regard in a number of judgments, including the case of Nipun Saxena v. Union of India, where the apex court decided that the name, address, school, or other details that could be used to identify the child in conflict with the law or victim cannot be made public. No image of a kid or other anybody who may, either directly or indirectly, reveal their identify may be published.