Supreme Court expresses concern over cases of missing children in India, urges Center to streamline adoption and tracking mechanisms

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, November 18 expressed concern over a news report which claimed that a child goes missing every eight minutes in the country and termed it a serious issue.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said the adoption process in the country is complex and asked the Center to streamline the system.

“I read in a newspaper that every eight minutes a child goes missing in the country. I don’t know whether it is true or not. But it is a serious issue,” Justice Nagarathna said orally.

The top court remarked that since the process of adoption is stringent, it is natural for it to be violated and people adopt illegal methods to have children.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, sought six weeks’ time to appoint a nodal officer to handle the cases of missing children.

However, the apex court refused to grant six weeks’ time and asked the ASG to complete the process by December 9.

On October 14, the bench had directed the Central government to direct all states and Union Territories to appoint a nodal officer to handle cases of missing children and provide their names and contact details for publication on the Mission Vatsalya portal run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

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It had directed that whenever a complaint regarding a missing child is received on the portal, the information should be shared with the nodal officers concerned.

The apex court had earlier asked the Center to create a dedicated online portal under the aegis of the Home Ministry to trace missing children and investigate such cases.

It had highlighted the lack of coordination among police officers tasked with locating missing children across states and union territories in the country.

The court had said that the portal can have a dedicated officer from each state who can be in-charge of missing complaints besides disseminating information.

NGO Guria Swayamsevak Sansthan had moved the apex court and highlighted the unresolved cases of abduction or missing of children besides taking necessary action based on the information available on the Khoya/Paya portal monitored by the Government of India.

The petition bases its argument with five cases registered in Uttar Pradesh last year in which minor boys and girls were abducted and trafficked to states like Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan through a network of middlemen.