HC seeks Centre, Delhi govt stand on plea to safeguard domestic violence victims during lockdown

The Delhi High Court on Saturday sought responses of the Centre and the Delhi government on a plea seeking measures to safeguard victims of domestic violence and child abuse amidst the COVID-19 lockdown.

A bench of justices J R Midha and Jyoti Singh issued a notice to the ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Information and Broadcasting, as well as the Delhi government and the women commissions here, seeking their stand on the petition by an NGO.

The lawyers who appeared for both sides in the proceedings held via video-conferencing said the notice was issued in the matter to the Centre, the Delhi government and the women commissions.

However, the detailed order is yet to be made available on the high court website.

The NGO, All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties and Social Justice (AICHLS), has claimed that there were increasing number of domestic violence incidents since the nation was put under lockdown and sought an urgent intervention by the court.

The bench, in its order, also directed the setting up of a high-level committee to look into the issues raised in the NGO's petition and submit a report by April 24, the next date of hearing.

On Friday, the Delhi government and the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had told the court that there are sufficient measures in place to safeguard the victims of domestic violence and child abuse amidst the COVID-19 lockdown in the country.

The Women and Child Development department, represented by Delhi government additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose and advocate Urvi Mohan, told the court that sufficient facilities were available to house victims of domestic violence and children in need of care and protection.

The department had also said there were 24x7 helplines in place and when a complaint was received, rescue of victim(s) was carried out immediately.

The DCW, represented by advocate Rajshekhar Rao, told the court that the volume of calls on its helpline - 181 - has gone down after April 1.

However, there was a spike in the call volume between March 26 and March 31, but it was largely for seeking clarity in relation to the imposition of the lockdown.

Normally, on an average, the DCW receives around 1500-1800 calls, it told the court.

The DCW also said that an analysis of the calls received on its helpline during the lockdown indicated no rising trend in domestic violence cases.

"On the contrary, the number of cases reported to the helpline have decreased. While no definite conclusion can be drawn, this is probably due to the circumspection on the part of victims in reporting such incidents due to the presence of the perpetrators in the house and the fear of further violence if such attempt to report were made known to the perpetrator," the commission said.

It also said that the cases of molestation, sexual assault, stalking etc., "have decreased manifold presumably since a large number of these incidents take place outside the domestic setting and by third parties".

"The reported cases of rapes have also decreased by 71 per cent (approx.), again presumably due to the perpetrators being third parties and the location of the attacks being outside the household.

"Kidnapping cases reported to the helpline have also seen a fall of more than 90 per cent," the commission said.

AICHLS, in its plea, has contended that incidents of domestic violence and child abuse have gripped not only India but countries such as Australia, the UK and the USA, and the reports suggest that countries are witnessing a horrific surge in domestic violence cases since the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns.

The plea has claimed that the helpline numbers across the country have received about 92,000 calls on domestic abuse and violence in the first 11 days of the lockdown alone and sought to appoint nodal officers to attend to such distress calls.