New Delhi:
If a newborn baby goes missing from the hospital, the first step should be to cancel the license of the hospital, the Supreme Court today said that it expressed pain on child trafficking cases and issued guidelines to deal with this danger.
The bench of Justice JB Pardwala and Justice R Mahadan was hearing a petition challenging the accused in a child trafficking case. Drawing the Allahabad High Court, the bench stated that the bail application was dealt with “call” and many accused are now missing. “These accused pose a serious threat to the society. The High Court is the lowest requirement while granting bail, to implement a condition to mark the attendance at a police station every week. The police lost the track of all the accused persons,” said this.
Justice Pardiwala said that the bench was “completely disappointed” how the Uttar Pradesh government handled the matter. “… no appeal was made … no seriousness was shown … It seems that the accused was craving for a son and then got a son for Rs 4 lakh. If you wish a son, you could not go for a smuggled child. He knew that the child was stolen,” he said.
The court asked all the accused to surrender and said that they should be sent to judicial custody. The court said, “The allegations will be implicated within a week. If it is informed that some accused have escaped, the trial court will issue non-bailable warrants. Currently those people will be prosecuted.”
Justice Pardwala said that the decision includes detailed recommendations to deal with child trafficking and asked the state governments to implement them as soon as possible. The court said, “High Courts across the country are directed to call for the status of pending tests in child trafficking cases … any laxity shown in implementing directions will be taken seriously and considered as contempt,” the court said.
Justice Pardwala said that parents should be cautious about their children. “Pain and suffering. When a child dies when a child dies, when a child gets lost from a gang of smuggling … When the child dies, the child is with almighty, but when lost, they are on the mercy of such gangs,” they said.
Then he said that from where a newborn baby disappears, any hospital should lose its license. “If any newborn is smuggled from a hospital. The first step should be to suspend the license of such hospitals. If any woman comes to the hospital to give a child and the child is stolen, the first step is a suspension of the license,” said Justice Pardwala.
India reports about 2,000 cases of child trafficking every year. According to the National Crime Records Bureau report, 2250 such cases were reported in 2022. Most of these cases were reported in Telangana, Maharashtra and Bihar.