States failed to provide care to children in need during COVID pandemic, says SC

The Supreme Court Monday expressed grave disappointment with all the states for failing to take care of children whose parents have died during the pandemic and are now surviving on streets. The court said that despite the passing of 3-4 months, the states have not even completed the first stage i.e. the identification of children in need.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday expressed deep disappointment with all the states for failing to take care of children whose parents have died during the pandemic and are now surviving on the streets. The court said that despite the passing of 3-4 months, the states have not even completed the first stage i.e. the identification of children in need.

The bench comprising of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice Surya Kant was hearing a suo moto matter regarding children in need of protection and care. On earlier occasions, the court had asked the authorities of all the states and UTs to take immediate steps for the rehabilitation of children in need and submit status reports.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights(NCPCR) informed the court that there must be around 15 lakh children in need of care but only 10,000 children have been identified by the states and UTs.

NCPCR said that an organization had estimated 2 lakh children just in four cities, although the data displayed the number to be only 10,000. Court noted that this shows that action is not being taken on the state's part.

NCPCR said that in the meetings conducted with the states, 23 states attended and the rest could not, but even those who attended had no improvement.

The state of Assam told the court that it did not receive any mail from NCPCR and it will have to update its mail id so that it receives information. Maharashtra and Delhi governments were also pulled up for underreporting of the number of children in need.

Maharashtra identified 3257 children and Delhi identified 428. Court pulled up Delhi saying that some organizations identified 70,000 children and it identified only 428.

"There are children who don't have anybody to take care of them," said Justice J Rao pulling up the two states.

"This would become worse in cold, just imagine how much suffrage is going on, this is your duty we should not have to tell you," Rao further said.

The Uttar Pradesh government informed the court that 30,082 children had been identified by the NGO, whom the state is trying to locate since addresses were not provided. Several teams and agencies have been sent to find out about children.

The court suggested that traffic police can also be assigned work as mostly children beg at traffic signals.

Madhya Pradesh informed that it has identified 704 such children.

It was suggested to the court that authorities be penalized for not working efficiently, but the court said that it doesn't expect departments to work under threat of contempt and won't exercise its powers at this stage.

However, it did cite the Juvenile Justice(Care and Protection of Children) Act,2015 saying that not providing information about children is an offense and liable for prison.

It directed the DMs to take assistance of District Legal Service Authority and voluntary organisations to find out about children and rehabilitate them without any delay. They were directed to fill in all the details on the Bal Swaraj portal.

The top court also directed the states to formulate a policy with guidance from NCPCR regarding such children in its next meeting and submit the status reports within three weeks. The matter will be taken up for hearing again after four weeks.