Appoint nodal officers for collection of data on missing children: SC tells govt
The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the ministry of home affairs (MHA) to appoint a nodal officers to coordinate with all states and union territories for consolidating a central repository of data on missing children complaints, recoveries and cases pending prosecution in courts since January 2020
The Supreme Court on Tuesday laid the ground for a coordinated pan-India effort to tackle cases of missing children by directing the ministry of home affairs (MHA) to appoint a nodal officer to coordinate with all states and union territories for consolidating a central repository of data on missing children complaints, recoveries and cases pending prosecution in courts since January 2020.
Passing the order in a public interest litigation filed by a non-profit organisation Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan which flagged the proliferation of inter-state crime syndicates behind the rising number of missing children cases across states, the top court directed the states and UTs to provide updated information for the past five years up to December 31, 2025 and a further six weeks for its collation. The matter will be heard on February 10 for passing orders to strengthen the mechanism to trace out these children.
A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said, “We direct the MHA to appoint a nodal officer in two weeks. There shall be consultation between the nodal officer of MHA with the nodal officer of each state and union territory for the purpose of collection of accurate statistics of missing children and their restoration to parents or guardians or child care homes.”
Additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati appearing for Centre informed the court that based on a previous order by the court in this matter, the Centre deliberated with all states and UTs on the need for each state/UT women and child development department to nominate a nodal officer. This information is available on the Vatsalya portal operated by the Centre, Bhati added.
The court further directed the directorate of prosecution in each state/UT to forward details of all missing children cases pending before courts to the MHA’s nodal officer. Once the information is made available to the MHA officer, the court granted six weeks for collating all the data and posted the matter for hearing on February 10.
Appreciating the progress made by the states, UTs, the bench said, “Appointing nodal officers is a good development. We need to also indicate how they will go about tracking missing children.” The court further directed nodal officers to be appointed in all districts for better coordination in tackling such crimes.
The court was assisted in passing the order by senior advocate Aparna Bhatt who assisted as amicus curiae. In September, when this case was heard, the court had observed, “Presently, there is lack of a coordinated effort between police units in tracking children across states and union territories due to which trafficked children are not recovered in time or not at all recovered.”
While the petitioner suggested having a specialised agency such as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe these matters having inter-state and even overseas linkages, the court had mooted for strengthening the available mechanism by appointing nodal officers across each state and district.
The Centre had launched the Khoya Paya Portal in 2015 to serve as a centralised database exclusively dealing with missing children. However, the same did not yield results as the portal ailed to ensure inter-state coordination of investigation.
In addition, the MHA had launched a national level communications platform – Crime Multi Agency Centre (Cri-MAC) in 2020 to facilitate police across the country to share information about significant crimes, including human trafficking cases, on a real-time basis.
Advisories were issued by MHA in June 2013 asking all states and UTs to address aspects of prevention and prosecution of child trafficking cases by setting up anti-human trafficking units (AHTU) in each district. The advisory further stated that if a child remains missing for a period of four months, the case is to be forwarded to AHTUs.
As per the Crime in India 2022 Report, the all-India figure of “unrecovered child victims” of kidnapping and abduction from previous years is 51,100.
