The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the response of the Centre on implementing the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) formulated by the National Legal Services Authority for States to follow in tracing missing children.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justices Madan B. Lokur and A.K. Sikri asked Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta to give a response in one week and said if it was acceptable, the court could pass an order directing all the States to implement the SOPs.
Earlier, the Bench said it was satisfied with the response of the Bihar government in tracing 169 of the 633 missing children and said the remaining 464 should be tracked within three weeks.
The Bench granted four weeks’ time to the Chhattisgarh government to find all the missing children in the State. It earlier summoned the Chief Secretary and the DGP of Bihar and Chhattisgarh to explain what action they have taken on the issue after noting that the States were not implementing its order for registering FIRs in missing children cases.
The court said it was not satisfied with the progress made by the Madhya Pradesh government in tracing missing children and directed its Chief Secretary to be personally present on the next date of hearing.
The Bench passed this order after hearing senior counsel H.S. Phulka, appearing for NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, who said that many States were not taking steps to trace the missing children and they had also not furnished the data. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on December 4.
