A DELHI court denied anticipatory bail to a doctor couple, who had gone on a vacation to Thailand, allegedly leaving their 13- year- old domestic help locked- up and starving in their flat at Dwarka in south- west Delhi.
Additional district judge I. S. Mehta declined to provide legal relief to Dr Sanjay Verma and his wife Sumita, against whom look- out notices were issued on April 2 by the Delhi Police.
The bail plea made on behalf of the couple, wanted by the police for allegedly employing a child below 14 years of age and exploiting her, contended that Section 26 ( exploitation of juvenile or child employee) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, was not applicable to them.
Appearing for the couple, their counsel told the court that his clients were to return to India on March 31. A. K. Singh, counsel for child rights civil society Shakti Vahini, which first published the minor domestic help’s plight and took up the matter with the police, sought to refute the couple’s submission.
Singh sided with the prosecution counsel in opposing their anticipatory bail plea, saying the doctors had locked up the minor inside their Dwarka flat with food and water that lasted only for two days. He said the girl was rescued five days later only after neighbours saw her crying in the flat’s balcony. The girl, a native of Jharkhand, was hospitalised.
Doctors said she was on the verge of starvation.
DELHI DUO IN JAIL
THE chief metropolitan magistrate, Delhi, has sentenced a couple, Sunil Kumar Jha and Jhalki Devi, residents of Uttam Nagar, to two years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of ` 6,000 for the maltreatment of their minor domestic help. The couple was also ordered to pay a compensation of ` 20,000 to the victim, failing which they would have to undergo three months of simple imprisonment. Mail Today