The Supreme Court on Monday took note of a plea of the father of the Bulandshahr gang rape victim plea that the trial in the case be shifted out of Uttar Pradesh, and issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and Minister Azam Khan in the matter.
Justice Dipak Misra and Justice V. Nagappan, while issuing notice on the plea by the father of the minor girl raped, appointed senior counsel Fali Nariman as amicus curiae to assist the court in the matter.
Besides seeking the transfer of investigation from Uttar Pradesh Police, the father has urged the court to monitor the same.
The top court has seeked government’s response on why criminal case cannot be lodged against the minister.
A bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and C Nagappan also took note of the alleged controversial statement of the state’s urban development minister Khan that the incident was a “political conspiracy”, as the plea sought registration of an FIR against him.
“Why should people in power and authority make such statement which shakes faith of victim in justice delivery system,” the court said.
The court framed several constitutional questions, including whether a person, holding public office, can give a statement that may create “distrust” in the minds of the victims about a fair probe in the case and whether such a statement can be a part of freedom of speech and expression.
The man, whose wife was also gang-raped along with his daughter last month on a highway, on August 13 moved the apex court seeking the transfer of the case to Delhi “in the interest of justice“.
A woman and her 14-year-old daughter were gang-raped by a gang of 13 dacoits at gunpoint near a highway in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr last month. Shockingly, Azam had then bizarrely described the rape as an ‘opposition conspiracy’.
Azam Khan had courted controversy saying ‘the incident could be a political conspiracy since the elections were near, and a desperate opposition can stoop to any level to defame the Akhilesh Yadav government’.
The ‘shocking’ remarks from the minister had come when the gang-rape victims’ family had threatened to commit suicide if the police fail to give them justice in the next three months.
The family had then moved the Supreme Court seeking police complaint against minister Azam Khan for his outrageous comments.
