'Serious issue': Supreme Court on cases of missing children

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday voiced concern over a news report that claimed that every eight minutes, a child goes missing in the country, and described it as a serious issue.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said the adoption process in the country is complicated and asked the Centre to streamline the mechanism.

"I have read in a newspaper that every eight minutes, a child goes missing in the country. I don't know if this is true or not. But this is a serious issue," Justice Nagarathna observed orally.

The top court remarked that as the adoption process is rigorous, it is bound to be flouted and people go for illegal means to have children.

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

The apex court, however, refused to grant six weeks and asked the ASG to complete the process by December 9.

On October 14, the bench had directed the Union government to instruct all States and Union territories to depute a nodal officer to handle cases of missing children and to provide their names and contact details for publication on the Mission Vatsalya portal operated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

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

The top court had earlier asked the Centre to create a dedicated online portal under the aegis of the home ministry to trace missing children and investigate such cases.

It had underlined the lack of coordination among police authorities entrusted with the job of tracing missing children in States and Union territories in the country.

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

NGO Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan had moved the top court and highlighted unresolved cases of kidnapping or missing children besides the actions required to be taken on the basis of information available with the Khoya/Paya portal monitored by the government of India.

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