Union minister for women and child development, Maneka Gandhi, on Tuesday made a strong pitch in the Rajya Sabha for the Juvenile Justice Bill, which seeks to amend the law to allow trying those over 16 years of age and accused of heinous crimes, as adults.
It could not get “more nuanced and compassionate,” the minister said as she urged the upper house to approve the bill, already passed by the Lok Sabha.
Present in Parliament as the Rajya Sabha debates the Bill are Asha Devi and Badrinath, the parents of Nirbhaya, a 23-year-old medical student who was brutally gang-raped six men on a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died in a Singapore hospital 13 days later.
Union Minister of State, Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the entire country is expecting from the Parliament to pass the Juvenile Justice Bill which would allow children between 16-18 years to be tried as adults in heinous crime cases.
” I hope that the Parliament will pass the Juvenile Justice Bill. I do not want to engage in tirade of who stopped the Bill and who did not engage in passing the Bill. The citizens of this country are asking that Parliament should be responsible and committed in passing the Bill,” Sitharaman said.
Meanwhile, Nirbhaya’s parents reached Parliament today as discussion on Juvenile Justice Bill began in Rajya Sabha.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal’s plea against the release of the juvenile convict in the Nirbhaya gangrape case.
Maliwal squarely blamed members of the Rajya Sabha for delaying the passing of the pending Juvenile Justice Bill, which would have ensured what she and other women wanted.