The Madras High Court on Thursday called for status reports from governments of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on the steps taken by them to implement a slew of 15 directions issued by the Supreme Court in 2018 for effective implementation of the laws related to protection of child rights.
A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and M. Jothiraman ordered that the reports must be filed in the court by January 30, 2025. The orders were passed on a suo motu writ petition taken up by the High Court in 2018, at the request of the Supreme Court, to follow up the issue closely.
Amicus Curiae T. Mohan and senior counsel Pragyan Sharma, representing Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), told the Bench that the Supreme Court had delivered an elaborate judgement on child rights in Sampurna Behura (programme director of BBA) versus Union of India decided on February 9, 2018.
Then, a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta (since retired) had expressed serious concern over tardy implementation or virtual non-implementation of laws such as the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 and the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.
Though the very first of the 15 directions issued by the Supreme Court was to fill up all positions in the national level commission as well as the State level commissions, the Tamil Nadu Commission for Protection of Child Rights was completely defunct at present, Mr. Sharma complained to the court.
The other directions were related to filling up the vacancies in juvenile justice boards and child welfare committees, setting up special juvenile police units, appointing child welfare police officers, making child rights a part of the curriculum in police academies, monitoring child care institutions and so on.
Stating that a status report with respect to Tamil Nadu was filed before the High Court last in 2021, Mr. Sharma urged the court to issue a direction to the governments of Tamil Nadu as well as Puducherry to file fresh status reports with latest developments and the Bench acceeded to his request.
