The Supreme Court on Monday stressed that every woman in Delhi must feel safe while using public spaces and public transport, telling the Union government and Delhi Police to take effective measures to address safety concerns in the national capital.
The court’s intervention comes amid a series of cases involving women and minors in the National Capital Region. The audit also flagged problems with boundary security, gates, toilets and abandoned structures in several parks. The Supreme Court had on September 28 taken suo motu cognisance of the incidents, including the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl at Aastha Kunj Park near Kalkaji, the alleged gang rape of a minor in Swaroop Nagar and the alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl inside a bus travelling from Greater Noida to Delhi. It also linked the issue of public safety to the fundamental right to live with dignity and without violence under Article 21 of the Constitution. The alleged gang rape of the 17-year-old at Aastha Kunj Park on September 21 triggered widespread protests and renewed scrutiny of security arrangements in Delhi’s parks. A subsequent DDA safety audit found that only 16 of the 736 DDA-managed parks had CCTV cameras. As many as 190 parks were classified as high-risk, while 520 were identified as needing additional lighting and 323 as requiring additional CCTV cameras. More than 30 locations at Aastha Kunj itself have since been identified for installation of CCTV cameras, with officials noting that the park has secluded stretches and wooded areas that make surveillance difficult.
“We must ensure every woman in NCT Delhi feels safe, whether walking at 10 PM or travelling by metro or road,” a bench led by Justice JB Pardiwala said while hearing a suo motu case concerning recent rape and sexual assault incidents in Delhi-NCR. The bench had said public spaces such as parks, roads and buses could not be allowed to become “zones of high risk” and questioned whether lessons had been learnt from the 2012 Nirbhaya case.
The court’s latest observation comes as the debate over women’s safety has increasingly focused not only on policing but also on whether women can freely access and use public spaces after dark. She has called for better lighting, CCTV cameras and additional security personnel at vulnerable locations, while urging that cases involving women and girls be expedited.
The Supreme Court has also criticised what it described as a “systemic failure” by the Delhi government and police to guarantee basic public safety, and called for an audit of public spaces in the capital. Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta has said that ensuring women’s safety cannot mean imposing restrictions on girls and women.
