The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Ranchi district became a headless body after the Jharkhand Government on Saturday suspended CWC chairperson Roopa Kumari Verma and member Tanushree Sarkar owing to a pending FIR against them.
Releasing their suspension order the Department of Women, Child Development and Social Security said that they have been suspended in the wake of the FIR lodged by Sita Swansi, secretary of Diya Seva Sansthan at SC-ST police station on February 21 this year.
As both are vested with the judicial power; under the provisions of Juvenile Justice Act an official of CWC vested with judicial power can’t exercise judicial power if he or she is facing any criminal case.
Swansi alleged that she was mentally harassed and ill-treated by them on the caste ground. She further alleged that in order to harass her they stopped payment of the government fund and international aides for her shelter home. She said that on their instruction Ranchi police had illegally transferred 22 children from her shelter home to other. Notably, Swansi has also filed a writ petition before the Jharkhand High Court against the order of the CWC.
Nevertheless, Diya Seva Sansthan was facing an inquiry that the shelter home being run by the NGO is not functioning as per the rule of the JJ Act besides living condition of children here was also not good.
According to the law the CWC consists of five members, including the chairman. In Ranchi CWC, the term of three of these members had expired many months back. Ranchi CWC was left with two members to execute judicial and administrative work.
Nevertheless, they were on extension and their extension period was also set to expire the next month, the timing of suspension itself has created curiosity among people. They were suspended six months after FIR was lodged at a time when police have yet not completed the investigation. This is widely believed that they had not competently handled a couple of cases of rescue and rehabilitation of children.