Overview
- The Supreme Court directed all High Courts to ensure court orders do not name survivors or their family members, with copies of its ruling sent to registrars general.
- The court said identity disclosures violate its 2018 Nipun Saxena ruling, which bars publishing any detail that can reveal a victim’s identity.
- The justices stressed that disclosure is a criminal offence under Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code, now Section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, with penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment.
- In a specific intervention, the court ordered the Supreme Court Registry to remove a 3.8-year-old survivor’s name and other identifiers from affidavits filed by Gurugram police.
- In a Himachal Pradesh case, the court denounced the use of a nine-year-old’s name in records and restored the rape conviction that the High Court had set aside.