Close to 200 Muslim orphanages in Kerala have threatened to close down in defiance of a Supreme Court order asking all orphanages and children homes in the country to be registered under the Juvenile Justice Act.
The Kerala-based Yateem Khana Association represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal claimed that the apex court's order of May 2017 was contrary to the very nature and purpose of Yateem Khana is to provide a home to those children who are either abandoned or stay away from their parents.
Moreover, the instruction is religious in nature and being the property of Waqf, the administration rests with the Wakf Board. On the other hand, children kept in Juvenile homes are those in need of care or in conflict with law and can even be taken up in adoption. If the Yateem Khana is registered under the JJ Act, it will lose its character and will run contrary to Muslim personal law which does not permit adoption.
But the bench of Justices Madan B lokur and Deepak Gupta felt that the institutions housing children must essentially be registered under the JJ Act. The Court's order was guided by numerous instances of child sexual abuse and rape of inmates in homes run by government, NGOs and other voluntary organisations.
A majority of child care homes, according to information supplied to Court, are unregistered. This led the Court to think about the plight of children kept in these homes culminating in its order asking all states to crack the whip and register all orphanages and children homes under the 2015 Act.
Sibal's client had filed an affidavit in the apex court claiming that they will shut down than come under the JJ Act. This offended the bench which said, "Such is your attitude that you suggest we have to close down and let the state look after the children.
Show us how different are you than the JJ Act, are you providing facilities to children and how many are there in your institutions."
The Court directed the Association to supply this information in four weeks to test how such institutions are performing outside the ambit of JJ Act.