Bailable charge on couple who sold children, none on buyers

The couple have five children; the three allegedly sold have been brought back while the other two — a 10-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter — too were “rescued” by the Child Welfare Committee at Visakhapatnam and CWC Khurda.
On Sunday last week, the police rescued a minor daughter of the couple from Cuttack’s Bidanasi area. Rao had allegedly sold the girl to a couple in Cuttack for Rs 5,000.

Two of the five children are being kept in the custody of Ruchika Childline while three others, including the 22-day-old infant, are at the Missionaries of Charity, Bhubaneswar.

Inspector-in-charge of Kharavela Nagar police station Nihar Pradhan said police could book the couple only under Section 23 of the JJ Act. “There is no provision in the IPC under which we could have booked them or any of the parents who took the children. Besides, there was nothing in the JJ Act under which we could book the three couples who had taken these children,” he said.

Section 23 states that “whoever, having the actual charge of a juvenile or child, assaults, abandons, exposes or wilfully neglects the juvenile or causes or procures him to be assaulted, abandoned, exposed or neglected, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or fine, or with both”. The offence is bailable. The Rao couple were bailed out while the other couples who “bought” the children were made to sign a personal remand bond.

“The parents could have been booked under section 317,” Child Welfare Committee member Benudhar Senapathi said. IPC section 317 deals with exposure or abandonment of a child aged under 12. “Booking them under JJ Act is not the solution. During our investigation we found that the father is a drunkard and had been selling off the children to buy liquor. Under the JJ Act, he needs to pay a fine and gets six months in jail. It’s hardly a deterrent.”