A bench headed by Chief Justice A P Shah decided to involve the Commission in the process of putting in place the guidelines after it pointed out that the acquittal rate in such cases, also known as incest, was high due to limitations faced by the police while collecting evidence.

"The Commission should conduct consultative exercise and prepare comprehensive guidelines. The suggested guidelines be placed before us within eight weeks," the Bench, also comprising Justice S Muralidhar, said.

The Court passed the order on a petition filed by the DCW seeking direction to the NCT government to issue guidelines to the police on investigation into cases where children are raped by their own family members.

"The Statute does not lay down any guidelines of legislation to effectively tackle cases of incest or child sexual abuse...," the counsel submitted before the Bench.

"Even the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) also does not provide any specific procedure to deal with such offence where the lives of young children are involved and the perpetrator is no one else but a close blood relation only," Bhat added and sought quashing of trial court's acquittal order against Pandey.

Citing a rape case, the Commission pointed out in its petition that a trial court had acquitted an accused, of charges of raping his four-and-half-year-old daughter, due to retraction by her mother and elder sister.

While acquitting the accused father, Additional Sessions Judge Anoop Kumar Mendiratta had said "the acquittal in this case is painful as a blossoming child is alleged to have been ravished by her own father but unfortunately both her mother and sister turned hostile and did not support the prosecution."

The trial court had directed the police commissioner to monitor the child "so that her safety can be ensured under the same roof."

"Some steps need to be explored to ensure that dignity and honour of the victim -- who is mostly a minor child -- is protected at least till the age she reaches a rational understanding, and is not exploited under the same roof," the trial judge had observed in his judgement.