The Supreme Court today pulled up Bihar and Chhattisgarh governments for their failure to find missing children in their states and not registering FIRs in such cases.
A bench headed by Chief Justice H l Dattu said that parents of the missing children are suffering due to inaction of the state governments.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the status report filed by two states, the bench directed them to file a fresh report and also slammed Chhattisgarh government for giving different figures of missing children before it and Rajya Sabha.
"You will be in trouble if the statements given by you in Rajya Sabha and before us are wrong," the bench said and posted the case for further hearing on November 13.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Bihar, submitted that in the last one year, 2874 cases of missing children were registered and 2241 children were found and 633 are still missing.
The bench after going through the report said that only in 40 per cent cases, FIRs were lodged and 20 per cent children are still missing.
It then perused the Chhattisgarh report and found that the government had given the around 9500 cases of missing but the figure given in Parliamnet was around 11500.
In compliance of the apex court's order of October 16,Chief Secretaries and DGPs of Bihar and Chhattisgarh, who were summoned, were present in the court.
Sending a stern warning to all states, the apex court had in October asked them not to make a "tamasha" (drama) of the issue and take effective action to tackle such incidents.
The bench had said that it would not hesitate to summon top officers of the state if such incidents occur repeatedly in their jurisdiction.
Senior advocate H S Phoolka, appearing for NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, said many states have not provided data and compliance report of the apex court's earlier direction on the issue.
The Supreme Court had passed a slew of directions on the NGO's PIl alleging that for over 1.7 lakh children have gone missing in the country between January 2008-2010, many of whom were kidnapped for trafficking in flesh trade and child abour.
It had directed that FIR should be registered as soon as information regarding a missing child is received by the police.
Further, a photo of the child be uploaded on the 'Child Track' website, it had said, adding that there should be a Juvenile Welfare Officer in every police station in the country.