Newz Desk, Durgapur/New Delhi: “In India, a child goes missing every eight minutes” — referring to this information recently published in a newspaper, the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed deep concern. Calling it a “very serious” issue for the entire country, the apex court said that the government must strengthen the mechanisms for tracing missing children and preventing trafficking. The court also directed the government to appoint a nodal officer for cases of missing children by December 9.
The Supreme Court observed that the process of adopting children in India is also quite complicated. To avoid these legal complexities, many people take unethical routes. Therefore, the government needs to simplify the adoption rules as well.
During the hearing, Justice Nagarathna said, “I read in a newspaper that a child goes missing in the country every eight minutes. I do not know how accurate this data is. But the matter is alarming.”
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati submitted that the Centre could be asked to appoint a nodal officer within six weeks. But the Supreme Court rejected the six-week timeline and ordered that the entire process must be completed by December 9.
Earlier, on October 14, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to instruct all States and Union Territories to appoint nodal officers for handling all missing children cases. Along with this, details of missing children must be uploaded on the “Mission Vatsalya” portal run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The Ministry of Home Affairs was also asked to create a dedicated portal where each state would have one designated officer for missing children cases.
Currently, there exists a government portal called “Khoya-Paya”, meant for missing children.
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