The Madras High Court on Monday (February 24, 2025) directed the State government to constitute the Tamil Nadu Commission for Protection of Child Rights (TNCPCR), which has remained dormant for the last three years due to pending court cases, before June 20, 2025, and report compliance.
Justices S.M. Subramaniam and K. Rajasekar issued the direction after Social Welfare Secretary Jayashree Muralidharan told the Division Bench that a notification calling for applications for the post of chairperson and members to TNCPCR was published on February 13, 2025.
She said the last date for submission of applications was March 20, 2025, and thereafter, the government would require a minimum of three months to process the applications before a committee comprising the Social Welfare Minister and the Chief Secretary selects the chairperson.
Stating the government perfectly understands the importance of the TNCPCR in protecting child rights and the need to constitute it at the earliest, Ms. Muralidharan said, the commission had remained dormant due to a pending court case, which got disposed of only recently.
The secretary also informed the court the government had received 22 applications ever since the notification was issued and it expected more before the last date of submission. Accepting her submissions, the judges granted time till June 20, 2025, for the constitution of the commission.
The orders were passed on a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) petition taken up by the court in 2018 at the request of the Supreme Court for follow-up with the State government on the issue of protection of child rights and effective implementation of the laws relating to children.
After disposing of the suo motu PIL with a direction to the government to constitute the TNCPCR at the earliest and directing the Registry to list the case for reporting compliance on June 20, 2025, the judges said, the government must also comply with all the directions issued by the Supreme Court.
The top court had issued a series of directions to all State govenrments, on protection of child rights, in Sampurna Behura (programme director of Bachpan Bachao Andolan) versus Union of India on February 9, 2018.
Then, a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta (since retired) had expressed serious concerns over the 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.
They had issued a set of 15 directions, which included the need to fill up all vacant positions in the national-level commission as well as the State-level commissions for protection of child rights and also to fill up the vacancies in juvenile justice boards and child welfare committees.
