The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the police and State machinery in Bihar and Chhattisgarh to get their act together in registering FIRs and providing correct figure of children reported missing over past three years and are yet untraced.
Singling out the two States - Chhattisgarh (9,428) and Bihar (2,874) for having the highest number of missing children till September 2014, the Bench headed by Chief Justice Hl Dattu was pained to learn that till date, missing complaints of children was only a “diary entry” in police files and not reduced to FIR.
Although Bihar claimed out of 2,874 missing children, 2,241 were recovered and only 633 remain to be traced, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar who appeared for the state had no reply to a query whether these 633 cases formed part of 1,097 FIRs registered or 1,761 diary entries. The State DGP and Chief Secretary were present in Court who were asked to furnish a better affidavit by November 13, while their personal presence was exempted. However, the DGP and Chief Secretary of Chhattisgarh were not that lucky.
Chhattisgarh too claimed it had traced 8,224 children lauding over its 93 per cent recovery rate. This meant only 1,204 children are missing as on date. But in a response to Parliament, the Home Ministry quoted 4,000 children missing in the state as on August 6, 2014. The bench warned the State not to mislead the Court and reconcile the two figures by filing a proper affidavit on next date.