‘Helpless’ SC says condition of shelter homes ‘frightening’
Terming a report of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights on the status of children in shelter homes across India as "frightening", the Supreme Court on Tuesday said it was "helpless" as any direction to the authorities in the matter would be called "judicial activism".
Referring to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights' (NCPCR) social audit report on shelter homes, a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur said that out of the 2,874 children homes, only 54 have received positive reviews from the body, set up under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
As per the report, out of 185 shelter homes which were audited, only 19 have records of children residing there.
The bench, which also comprised Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, said if the court said something in the matter, it would be accused of "judicial activism", even though the authorities were "not interested" in doing their work and only "passing the buck" and blaming each other for the situation prevailing in these child shelters.
If the authorities had functioned properly, recent incidents like the one in Muzaffarpur in Bihar where several girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused in a shelter home would not have happened, it said.
"It is very clear from this (NCPCR) report that nobody is interested. The court is helpless. If we do something, then it will be said that it is judicial activism," the bench said, adding "judicial activism has to be given up".
Advocate Aparna Bhat, assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the matter, said that directions from the top court was not judicial activism, as the welfare of children living in shelter homes was important, reports PTI.
"Have you seen the report of NCPCR? It is frightening," the bench told her.
The court noted that as per NCPCR's report, out of 210 special adoption centres audited, only eight received positive reviews while only 16 per cent of the 172 observation homes had all the records of the children living there.