Court to monitor CBI probe into care home sex scandal

Bench of Bihar High Court also orders appointing a special judge to speedily try the accused

The Patna High Court in a significant move yesterday decided to monitor the ongoing Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the alleged mass rape of girls at a care home in Bihar and also directed the investigating agency to submit details of the investigation conducted so far to the court within two weeks.

An official report has confirmed rape of as many as 34 girls out of total 44 lodged at the shelter home running at Muzaffarpur town in Bihar, some 80km from Patna. The court agreed to monitor the investigation after the state government prayed for that apparently in the light of national-wide outrage over the issue and the opposition questioning the role of the state government. A bench of the High Court headed by chief justice Rajendra Menon also ordered for appointing a special judge to speedily try the sexual abuse case.

“The High court has accepted our appeal to monitor the CBI probe into the case and also ordered for conducting speedy trial of the case in special court,” Advocate General Lalit Kishore told the media yesterday.

Acting tough in the matter, the court asked the superintendent of police, CBI to submit details of investigation. At the same time, the court also directed the state government to provide details on rehabilitation of inmates in care homes and posted the matter for hearing after two weeks. This comes shortly after the Supreme Court had taken the suo motu cognisance of the case. In another related development, the state government headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar yesterday decided to keep the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) out of the purview of running the shelter homes. “From now on, the state government will run the shelter homes, none will be run by the NGOs anymore. This task will be completed in phases,” Kumar announced.

The state government has so far suspended 14 officials of the social welfare department for their slackness on acting on the report of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, who highlighted the horror details in its audit report submitted to the state government in May.

The issue also rocked the Parliament yesterday after which the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan directed the government to ensure effective investigation by the CBI into the care home sex scandal while terming the matter as “sensitive”.