The Supreme Court on Tuesday flagged the issue of organized child trafficking cases in India and directed the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to collect data on the subject and file a report before it [Sanjay v. The State of Uttar Pradesh and anr.].
A Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti ordered the Union Home Ministry to file a report containing the following details:
(i) How many child missing cases have been registered in each District/State since 2020 i.e. when the Crime Multi Agency Centre (Cri-MAC) was launched?
(ii) From the registered cases, how many children have been recovered within the stipulated period of 4 months and how many are yet to be recovered?
(iii) Whether a functional Anti-Human Trafficking Units in each district is established and if so, number of cases entrusted to the respective Anti-Human Trafficking Units.
(iv) The powers conferred on the Anti-Human Trafficking Units under applicable laws.
(v) The number of pending prosecutions relating to child trafficking cases in each District/State.
(vi) Year-wise data be provided including the steps the respective States intend to take in delayed cases of investigation or non recovery of the missing child.
The top court issued these directions while setting aside a slew of High Court orders which had granted bail to six persons accused of being involved in a child trafficking racket spread across the States of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.
Specifically, the persons who had been granted bail stand accused of kidnapping a 4-year-old boy.
The Supreme Court observed that the High Court had granted bail to the accused persons without having considered the parameters involved in such cases.
“The punishment envisaged in the event of conviction for the charged sections is minimum 14 years which can extend upto life imprisonment. Notwithstanding the serious nature of the crime as also the likely involvement of the accused in the child trafficking racket, we notice from the impugned order(s) that the High Court without considering the relevant parameters in cases of this nature, granted bail to the accused”, the Court said in its September 24 order.
It also noted that the accused persons had failed to appear before the Court to defend their bail orders.
It therefore allowed the plea and quashed the bail orders issued by the High Court.
In the matter, a plea had also been filed by same appellant/petitioner highlighting the plight of children who fall prey to organized child trafficking rackets spread across multiple States in the country.
Young children from vulnerable families are kidnapped and sold to traffickers who work on a network basis, it was submitted.
Further, the counsel for the petitioner also brought to the notice of the Court that there are people who are tasked with identifying vulnerable children and to arrange for their trafficking and eventual exploitation.
The Court took note of an affidavit submitted by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on September 23 which highlighted the advisories issued by the Home Ministry to all States and the Union Territories in India regarding redressal of three specific aspects of trafficking— prevention, protection and prosecution.
Further, the Court noted that the Central government has been providing special financial assistance for upgrading or setting up of Anti-Human Trafficking Units covering all districts in the country.
Additionally it noted that a national level communication platform called the Crime Multi Agency Centre (Cri-MAC) had been launched in the year 2020 which facilitates dissemination of information about child trafficking crimes, on a real time basis.
Despite the aforesaid, the Court noted that the results of the coordinated efforts made by the Home Ministry along with the States and UT’s in this regard had not been brought before it at this point.
Thus, it proceeded to seek data from the Home Ministry on child missing cases and the criminal action and prosecution initiated pursuant to the same.
The Court directed the Ministry to file its report within six weeks.
Senior Advocate Aparna Bhat and advocates Rajkumari Banju Mayank Sapra, Karishma Maria and Lalima Das appeared for the appellant/ petitioner.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati and advocates Arvind Kumar Sharma, Swati Ghildiyal, Vishnu Shankar Jain, Saurabh Pandey, Mani Munjal, Garvesh Kabra, Abhishek Jaju, Pooja Kabra, Sujata Upadhyay, Avanish Deshpande, Sunny Choudhary, Sarad Kumar Singhania and Alpana Sharma appeared for the State of Uttar Pradesh and the Union of India.
[Read Order]