The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the completion of trials in child-trafficking cases within six months of their commencement.
“Non-compliance of our directions or any laxity of any nature in that regard on the part of any of the authorities shall be viewed very strictly and if need be, they shall be proceeded for contempt,” a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan said while cancelling the bail of 12 people allegedly involved in a child-trafficking racket.
The apex court expressed displeasure at Allahabad High Court for granting bail to the accused, some of whom have absconded. It also castigated the Uttar Pradesh government for failing to seek cancellation of the bail, prompting the families of the victims to move the apex court.
According to the prosecution, Calcutta resident Nandlal Ram, one of the 12 accused, had allegedly purchased a trafficked one-year-old son of a petitioner for ₹3.5 lakh. Police tracked the child to Nandlal’s home and rescued him.
Despite cases against them pending before a trial court in Varanasi, all the 12 accused had moved the high court and obtained bail.
“Considering the serious nature of the crime and the modus operandi adopted by the accused persons, we are of the view that the high court should not have exercised its discretion in favour of the accused persons,” the top court said.
“We are sorry to say but the high court dealt with all the bail applications in a very callous manner. The outcome of this callous approach... has ultimately paved the way for many accused persons to abscond and thereby put the trial in jeopardy,” Justice Pardiwala, who authored the judgment, observed.
It said the accused were “a big threat to the society” and the least the high court could have done while granting bail to them “was to impose a condition on each of them to mark their presence once in a week at the police station concerned”.
The top court also said it was “thoroughly disappointed with the manner in which the state (Uttar Pradesh) handled the situation”.
“Why did the state not do anything for all this period of time? Why did the state not deem it fit to challenge the orders of bail passed by the high court? The state, unfortunately, has exhibited no seriousness...,” it added.
The bench directed the trial court in Varanasi to issue non-bailable warrants against the absconding accused to secure their custody.
“The impugned orders of bail passed by the high court are hereby set aside. All the accused persons are directed to surrender before the committal court and the committal court in turn shall remand them to judicial custody,” the bench ordered.
The top court on Tuesday also directed that the licences of hospitals be immediately cancelled whenever any case of missing child is reported. In cases where a child is found to be engaged in manual work in violation of the Child Labour Act, the police must register an FIR, the top court ruled.