The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday directed the State government to issue standard operating procedures (SOPs), within three months, to conduct investigation into cases of child pornography and missing children, while issuing a series of directions on enforcing laws related to the care, the protection, and the rights of children.
Noticing that many important provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 and the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005 cannot be effectively implemented in the absence of rules, the court cautioned the government that it may has to issue drastic direction if the rules are not framed within a reasonable period.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice M. Nagaprasanna, passed the interim order while hearing two PIL petitions, through which the court has been monitoring enforcement of laws related to child rights in the State.
Noticing the insensitive manner in which a report of the Union government on child pornography was dealt with by the police recently, the Bench also said that SOPs should specify guidelines for investigating complaints related to child pornography.
‘To guide police’
The Bench said that SOPs should be formulated to ensure that the Special Juvenile Police Unit, the Child Welfare Police Officer and the Child Protection Unit discharge their duties and to guide the police unit to conduct proper investigation, including in the cases of missing children, as per the law.
Noticing from the documents that many child welfare committees (CWCs) lack adequate infrastructure, the Bench also directed the government to provide adequate infrastructure to all the CWCs across the State within two months and come out with a uniform staff pattern for all the CWCs if no staff pattern is followed at present.
Inspection
The government has also been directed to ensure that CWCs conduct inspection of residential child institutions and provide a dedicated staff at the directorate of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme.
As Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB)s are headed by the Chief Judicial Magistrates or the Chief Metropolitan Magistrates, the Bench also directed the Registrar-General of the High Court to issue directions to the Principal Magistrate of the JJBs to follow the mandate of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016 framed by the Union government as State government has not yet framed the rules.
Also, the Bench asked the government whether the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, which has an important role to monitor implementation of the Act, has been submitting reports to the government as per the law. If not, the commission will have to be directed to submit reports, the Bench added.
