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Child drug abuse is a child protection issue, not just health: CJI Surya Kant
CJI Surya Kant said children facing substance abuse need dignity, confidentiality and rehabilitation, warning that stigma can discourage them from seeking help.
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Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Saturday said that a child in need of care and protection should not be exposed to humiliation, stigma or exclusion or else the institutions meant to provide for their rehabilitation will become the reason for such victims to remain silent.
Stating that confidentiality and dignity lie at the core of an effective rehabilitation of children in need of care and protection, CJI said, “A child should not have to carry a permanent label because of a period of vulnerability. If seeking assistance exposes a child to humiliation, stigma or exclusion, the systems intended to provide protection may themselves become a reason for silence.”
Underscoring that agencies tasked with ensuring the rehabilitation of such children should adopt a “child-sensitive” approach, the CJI said the need is to re-integrate children by restoring their childhood and protecting not only their physical and mental well-being but also their dignity and sense of self-worth.
CJI was addressing a seminar on “Restoring Childhood, Preventing Drug Abuse and Re-integration of Children in Need of Care and Protection” in Patna.
The Supreme Court has been dealing with the rising concern of substance abuse among children, as he quoted an August 2026 study published in The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia, which estimates that more than one in five teenagers in India are at moderate-to-high risk of substance use.
Stating there are numerous reasons why a child may encounter substance abuse, justice Kant said, “We must resist the tendency to define a child by the problem that has brought the child before us.” He said that children who encounter this problem have to face a lot of trauma as their education gets interrupted, family relationships may become strained, physical and mental health may suffer, and the child may become more exposed to exploitation, violence, trafficking or other forms of abuse.
“Substance abuse among children must therefore be understood not only as a public health concern, but equally as a child-protection concern…It is how we ensure that a child who encounters it does not lose the opportunity to grow, learn, recover and belong,” CJI said.
The response to perpetrators of such crimes should differ from the response when child victims come before the court. CJI said, “The law must respond firmly to those who exploit children and circulate drugs. But when the system encounters a child struggling with substance use, the questions are different: safety, treatment, counselling and rehabilitation.”
It is here that the various stakeholders – police, hospital, school, family, court or legal service institutions – must help create conditions in which the child can once again experience what childhood ought to provide, namely, education, relationships, play, trust and the confidence of a future beyond the present difficulty, CJI said.
Seen in this backdrop, CJI explained that the real measure of rehabilitation is the restoration of the child’s place within the society, received by the community without stigma. “The judiciary, government, police, health and education systems, child-care institutions, legal services authorities, academia and civil society each hold part of the answer, and no single institution can provide the whole response,” he added.
Later in the day, CJI Kant took part in an open-house dialogue with students of Chanakya National Law University (CNLU), Patna, along with Patna high court chief justice V Kameswar Rao and CNLU vice chancellor Faizan Mustafa.
This was the CJI’s first open interaction at a law university following the recent opposition by students of NALSAR, Hyderabad and NLSIU, Bengaluru, to have the CJI at their convocation events.
