Apex Court SHOCKED over two lakh CHILDREN missing In survey on CHILD CARE Institutions

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed shock at the discrepancy in two surveys reflecting a difference of around two lakh children staying in child care institutions and said it was “very, very disturbing” that such children were being “treated” as mere numbers.

The top court was shocked when it was told that as per a 2016-17 survey carried out at the directions of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the number of children living in child care institutions (CCIS) was around 4.73 lakh, while the data filed in the court by the government this March says it was about 2.61 lakh.

“It is not clear what has happened to the balance of around two lakh children. These children appear to be missing from the statistics,” a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur said.

It also asked the Centre “how many children are miss- ing in this country besides these two lakh” and said if the provisions of law were being implemented in “letter and spirit”, then child abuse incidents like those in Muzaffarpur and Deoria would not have happened.

The bench, which also included Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, observed that there was a possibility that the CCIS may have given “inflated figures” to state governments to get more funds. This serious issue needs to be looked into, it said.

The counsel representing the Centre told the court that the government had compiled the data supplied by states and union territories about the number of children living in CCIS and filed the report in this regard in March.

“We rely on figures provided by states. The states have to say how there is such a variation. We will get back to the states as to which figure is correct,” the Centre’s counsel told the bench, adding “if these children are missing, it is a cause of serious concern and this is very, very alarming.”

The bench referred to the suggestions given by advocate Aparna Bhat, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the matter, and said it was contemplating setting up of a national level and state level committees to monitor the CCIS.

It noted the submissions of amicus that committees at the national and state levels could deal with the issue of CCIS so that recent incidents like alleged rape and sexual abuse of minor girls and women at shelter homes in Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Deoria in Uttar Pradesh were prevented.

The Centre’s counsel told the court that he would take instructions whether the government was prepared to have such a committee at the national level in this regard.

The bench posted the matter for hearing on August 28.

At the outset, the amicus told the bench that the Centre has filed an affidavit in the matter and pointed out the “shocking” detail about the discrepancy in the data on the number of children living in CCIS across the country.

She told the top court that one of the surveys says there were around 4.73 lakh children residing in CCIS, while the other put the number at only 2.61 lakh.