The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has taken a dig at BJP leader Subramanian Swamy for accusing the party’s Bangalore South candidate Nina P Nayak of supporting one of the rapists in the Nirbhaya case.

In a Facebook post, Swamy had alleged that Nayak was against the capital punishment to one of the rapists because he was a juvenile. He has also put up a banner post in this regard.

In a press release, the AAP’s Karnataka unit termed Swamy’s allegation “wholly false, illegal and defamatory”. It said the Juvenile Justice Act was in accordance with the guidelines laid by the United Nations’ Convention on the Right of Child. 

The UNCRC prescribes that anybody below 18 years is juvenile. In the Nirbhaya case too, one of the accused is below 18 years of age.

When the Nirbhaya case occurred, Swamy had filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking it to reduce the age of juvenile from 18 to 16 years but the court turned down the plea.

“The Supreme Court, in an important judgment, upheld the fixing of age of a child at 18 years and giving separate treatment to children in juvenile boards and not in regular adult criminal courts.

“Thereafter, the most recent judgment of three-judge bench in the case of Subramanian Swamy versus Raju, Member, Juvenile Justice Board, headed by the Chief Justice of India, P Sathasivam, also decided on March 28 that under the international law and Indian law, there is no scope for lowering the age of ‘constitutionally permissible’ fixation up to 18 years to define a child,” the press release said.

The party said the person who is attacking Nayak was himself an appellant before the SC in which the apex court categorically stated that it deemed it appropriate to part with the cases by dismissing the appeal filed by Dr Subramanian Swamy.