Supreme Court expresses concern over cases of missing children, terms it ‘serious’

NEW DELHI: Voicing serious concern over a news report that claimed that in every eight minutes, a child goes missing in the country, the Supreme Court — while hearing a petition filed by an NGO — on Tuesday termed it as “serious issue.””I have read in a newspaper that every eight minutes, a child goes missing in the country. I don’t know if this is true or not. But this is a serious issue,” Justice B V  Nagarathna, who was heading the two-judge bench, observed orally on Tuesday.The apex court comprising Justice R Mahadevan — besides Justice Nagarathna — made it clear during the hearing that the adoption process in the country is complicated and thereby it asked the Centre to make it simpler and to streamline the mechanism for an effective one. “The adoption process is rigorous, it is bound to be flouted and people go for illegal means to have children,” observed the top court.It passed these observations, after hearing a plea filed by the NGO  Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan, which had moved the SC and highlighted that unresolved cases of kidnapping or missing children besides the actions required to be taken on the basis of information available with the Khoya/Paya portal monitored by the government of India.The petition filed in the apex court stressed that five cases were registered in Uttar Pradesh last year in which minor boys and girls were kidnapped and trafficked through a network of middlemen to states like Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.



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