The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the CBI to investigate all incidents of alleged trafficking of children from other States to orphanages in Kerala.In the landmark judgement, the court said that repeated incidents of bringing large numbers of children from other States into Kerala in violation of rules and regulations clearly indicated the necessity of a proper investigation and punishment to those responsible.A division Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Ashok Bhushan and AM Shaffique said that the district-level Child Welfare committees should ensure that the rules were being complied with while children were being brought to orphanages. It also ordered that registration should be made mandatory for all orphanages in the State.The order came on a batch of petitions and a case initiated suo moto by the court itself on the basis of media reports. The High Court opined that a CBI probe was desirable as the issue concerned more inter-state matters and the Central agency expressed its willingness to take up the investigation.
The High Court order is, in a sense, a setback for the State Government which had opposed a CBI probe on the ground that an investigation was already being carried out by the Crime Branch of the Kerala Police and this was progressing effectively. The Government had also said that the incident of children’s inter-state transfer need not be seen as child trafficking.However, State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala welcomed Monday’s court order. “The court must have ordered a CBI probe as it could have felt that there was a need for a broader investigation. The Government has nothing to say about it. We will act as per the directions of the High Court,” Chennithala said.The Bench said inter-state transfer of children without fulfilling procedural requirements was against the law and the Child Welfare Committees should look into such cases. There were reports that several orphanages had engaged agents in North Indian States to find poor children who were prepared to be transferred to Kerala.
The court also said that Child Welfare Committees should carry out periodical and strict inspection at orphanages and that the police and other departments should provide the required support for this exercise. The court added that all orphanages should be brought under the purview of the Juvenile Justice Act 2000.Trafficking of children had become a huge issue in the State after the police detained 580 children aged between five and 14 at the Palakkad railway station in May, 2014 when they were being brought without proper documents from Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal to two orphanages run by Muslim organisations in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts.The orphanage managements had claimed that the children, all from poor families, were being brought for studies in the schools associated with the orphanages and that their transfer was legitimate though there could have been procedural lapses. The coalition Government, in which the Muslim league is a major partner, had supported this claim.
However, the issue triggered widespread debate and a probe was ordered into it and orphanages in the State came under the scanners of various agencies. The Jharkhand Government also had initiated an investigation. A similar incident of child trafficking from other States was reported last month in Ernakulam district.As per Government records, there are close to 1,400 orphanages in Kerala and there are thousands of inmates in these institutions. A large number of these inmates are children from States like Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Many of the orphanages also have educational institutions.