New Delhi: While Supreme Court Monday invoked “painful parallels” of the Nirbhaya case to take suo motu note of crimes against minor girls and women across the capital, a similar exercise — initiated days by Delhi High Court after the 2012 crime — appears to have lost steam in the past few years.
However, analysis of court documents reveals since 2023, few effective directions have been passed in the PIL where the court declared its intention to monitor and enforce steps to make public spaces safe and tighten law enforcement. It also submitted in 2023 that 6,630 CCTV cameras were strategically placed in vulnerable areas and monitored through 50 master control rooms.
In Dec 2023, a bench led by Justice V Kameshwar Rao last conducted a detailed hearing and asked Delhi govt to examine and inform “the feasibility of installing cameras and alert buttons at the driver and conductor seat in DTC buses”. In key directions issued in the PIL, HC had ordered an increase in the number of police officers in Delhi, CCTV installation in police stations and crime-prone areas, reducing delays in testing of samples at FSL, and ensuring speedy disbursal of compensation to the survivors.
Delhi govt had earlier informed HC installation of panic buttons on CCTV poles was under active consideration of Delhi Police ’s technology division.
Court orders show that till July 2025, Delhi govt asked for and was granted more time to furnish the details. In fact, in 12 subsequent hearings when the PIL was listed since the 2023 order, not much is recorded in court orders, except one line assigning a fresh date of hearing. Because the Chief Justice’s bench didn’t assemble on the day it was listed, or because the matter didn’t reach for a hearing, since then, the PIL somehow couldn’t be taken up, either. Advocate Meera Bhatia, who was appointed amicus curiae in the matter by HC, told TOI it is only due to past court orders that progress has been made in making the city safer.