Police oversight needed over private hostels, PG accommodation: HC

There has to be some oversight by police over places such as private hostels and paying guest accommodations with large number of people, especially women or girls, to ensure their security, the Delhi High Court said Friday.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice A J Bhambhani said Delhi Police has a duty to keep track of their areas and what was happening in such establishments to ensure that women or girls are not kept confined as was allegedly done at an ashram in Rohini here.

The court asked police what steps it had taken when it came to know that several girls and women were living at the Rohini ashram which was running out of a single building.

"Delhi Police has a duty to know what all activities were going on in their area. There should be some oversight when so many girls were living in one building," the court said.

It observed that such situations may exist in other places in the national capital and said that it will pass orders on what the police ought to do in such cases.

The lawyer representing the ashram said it was not running a hostel or a paying guest (PG) accommodation and was only providing spiritual education to the inhabitants of its premises.

The court, in response, said: "It (ashram) may not be a hostel or PG, but you are housing girls there, so their security and safety has to be looked into. You are concerned only about your institute, but we are concerned about larger public issues."