Guwahati, March 6: Two recent reports in The Telegraph, one on a Mizo domestic help who mysteriously went missing from an army officer?s residence and the other on the plight of workers of some locked tea gardens in Golaghat district, today became the basis of separate directives from Gauhati High Court to the army and the Assam government.

The court gave the army 24 hours to provide information on the whereabouts of the domestic help and directed the Assam government to file an affidavit explaining the situation in Golaghat, where workers of some gardens are allegedly on the brink of starvation.

The division bench of Chief Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice B.P. Katakey also asked the Mizoram government to submit a report on the progress of the investigation into the boy?s disappearance after being recruited by the army officer.

Shillongthanga, who was employed by Lt Col Kulwant Singh in his house in Punjab, has not been traced since 2000. The then 11-year-old boy?s father, Chhungrothanga, stated in his FIR at Vairengte police station in Mizoram that he had neither heard from his son nor received any money from Lt Col Singh in the last six years. The court registered a case on February 24, taking suo moto cognisance of a news report that had been published just three days earlier.

The public interest litigation pertaining to the plight of tea garden workers in Golaghat was initiated by three advocates ? Aswini Thakur, R.P. Sarma and G. Uzir ? on the basis of a news report published on March 2.

The report, headlined ?Hungry children hit Golaghat streets?, was on a protest march by children of tea garden workers.

Apart from seeking a report from the government, the division bench decided to serve a notice on the general secretary of the Assam Tea Tribes Students? Association. The association had paraded over 70 naked children with plates in their hands on the streets of Golaghat on February 28. The protesters marched to the assistant labour commissioner?s office to submit a memorandum demanding steps to reopen the locked gardens.

Several workers have reportedly died in the past few months for want of medical treatment. Children of workers have had to give up studies and start doing odd jobs with five tea gardens in the district downing shutters within a year.

The next court hearing is slated for March 17.