The Supreme Court on Monday said states have a constitutional duty to rehabilitate children living on streets after it found efforts lacking on part of states and union territories to identify and rehabilitate children forced to beg on streets to earn out a living.
A bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and BV Nagarathna said,
“These are marginalized sections of the society. You (states) have a constitutional duty, take it seriously. If states do not act promptly how will relief reach to these children? Imagine these children who have nobody to care for and they are living on the streets. The immediate needs of these children cannot wait any further.” Considering extreme winters in some states, the Court directed the respective states, including Delhi to consider housing such children in shelter homes on an urgent basis.
The Court directed the district magistrates in every state to rope in the special juvenile police units, district legal service authorities (DLSA) and other voluntary organization to identify the children who are living on streets either with or without families and those that beg during the day but at night return to the nearby slums. The Court further directed the states to evolve the procedure to be followed for rehabilitating such children upon identification.
On Monday, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) KM Nataraj appearing for NCPCR said,
“On supplying data of street children on a dedicated portal maintained by NCPCR, all states have failed to act.”
He supported his statement with statistics showing details of 9,945 street children uploaded by various states. Although a standard operating procedure in relation to street children, when NCPCR contacted states to report compliance, many states/UTs did not take part in the meeting.
The bench noted in its order, “The data of CISS uploaded on Bal Swaraj-CISS portal till January 11 discloses 9,945 CISS. A rough estimate of such children, according to NCPCR will be around 1.5 million. However, only one-tenth of these children have been identified. This shows suitable action is not being taken by states/UTs….It is high time that authorities who have not acted under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act are taken to task. We do not want to exercise such powers at present.”
Additional Advocate General for Uttar Pradesh Garima Prasad submitted before the top court that nearly 30,282 children were identified in the state in five districts by NGOs, and the government is attempting to reach them.
The matter will now be heard after four weeks.
The Court was hearing a suo moto proceeding where the Court had sought data from the national commission for protection of child rights (NCPCR) on the ground situation with regard to children living in street condition (CISS).
Earlier, the bench had directed all the District Magistrates states and UTs to take steps for the care and protection of children in street situations prepared by the NCPCR in 2020. It was also brought to the court’s notice that there are about 70,000 children in the streets of Delhi alone.
The apex court had earlier said the process of identifying children in street situations, adversely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, is at a very slow pace and directed the states and union territories (UTs) to take immediate steps to identify such children and rehabilitate them without waiting for its directions.
Hon’ble Mr Justice L Nageswara Rao
Judge Supreme Court of India
Hon’ble Mrs. Justice B.V. Nagarathna
Judge Supreme Court of India
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