New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notice to the city government on a plea challenging the Delhi Victim Compensation Scheme for discriminating between male and female victims of rape.
A division bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Ashutosh Kumar sought response from Delhi government while hearing a plea filed by 13-year-old who was sodomised by three senior students behind his school two years ago and posted the matter for July 13.
The plea sought enhancement of compensation provided to victims of child sexual abuse under the 2011 Delhi Victims Compensation Scheme.
The three boys were convicted of unnatural sexual offenses, the plea said, adding that since the Delhi Victim Compensation Scheme classified the crime merely as child abuse and not rape, he was provided with just Rs.50,000 compensation.
The scheme had effectively “discriminated against male-child victims of sexual assault by not recognizing penetrative assault on them as ‘rape’ and clubbing it as merely ‘child abuse’,” he contended.
The plea added that Rs.50,000 compensation under the head of child abuse was “arbitrary, grossly inadequate and discriminatory” as a minor girl would be entitled to compensation of Rs. 3 lakh under the head of rape for a similar crime.
It sought compensation of Rs. 10 lakh for the boy as he was a victim of a brutal sexual assault which resulted in him undergoing immense and irreparable physical and psychological trauma and his parents suffered severe financial hardship as an aftermath of the incident.