Prospects of a CBI probe into the controversial incident of trafficking of hundreds of children from North Indian States to orphanages in Kerala run by Muslim organisations got brighter on Wednesday with the agency informing the Kerala High Court of its readiness to take up the case. The court had on June 19 asked the CBI if it could probe the incident.
Counsel for the CBI told a division bench of the High Court headed by Chief Justice Manjula Chellur that the Kerala Police might face difficulties in probing such a case in which more States were involved. The court was also told that the CBI had a special cell functioning at its headquarters to handle such cases.
The division bench had earlier proposed a CBI probe pointing out that the State police might not be able to probe the incident because of its inter-State nature. The agency said that it was ready to take over the probe once the court gave the necessary instructions. The incident is currently being probed by the Crime Branch of the Kerala Police.
The case pertains to the trafficking of nearly 600 children from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal without proper documents to orphanages run by Muslim managements in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts. The police had detained these children at Palakkad when they were being brought on May 24 and had registered a case for human trafficking.
After the CBI counsel informed it of the agency’s willingness to take up the case, the court asked State Advocate General KP Dandapani if the Government was anxious about such an investigation. It asked the AG whether it was not a matter of satisfaction for the State Government that the CBI was ready to take over the probe.
However, Dandapani said he did not want to express an opinion at this stage. The court, which reminded the Government that it was viewing the matter quite seriously, asked the AG about details of the case including the number of people arrested so far. The AG submitted in court the probe progress report of the Crime Branch in a sealed envelope.
The division bench appointed lawyer Devan Ramachandran as amicus curiae to help it in the case. Since the beginning of the case, based on two petitions seeking comprehensive probe into the incident, the court has been expressing serious doubts about the State Government’s sincerity with regard to the investigation.