The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed the Bihar government over the horror at a girls’ shelter home in Muzaffarpur, where many of the children were found to have been sexually abused over the years.
A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur, Deepak Gupta and K.M. Joseph expressed shock that the NGO running the home was funded by the State government.
“People pay taxes and their money is being used for these things?” Justice Lokur asked the Bihar government.
‘Left, right and centre’
The Bench rued how crimes against women and children continue to be committed “left, right and centre.”
The court observed that some of the funding from the State to the NGO, run by the politically connected accused Brajesh Thakur, dates back to 2013.
The funds were provided without conducting any inspections.
The court ordered the Centre to apprise it on steps proposed to be taken to prevent sexual abuse of minors in shelter homes.
Bar on media
The court issued a national ban on the media from publishing or displaying photographs of minor victims of sexual abuse even in blurred or morphed forms.
It also banned interviews of minor victims of sexual abuse saying it seriously affected them.
The Bench directed that child sex abuse victims be interviewed only by members of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights in the presence of counsellors.
Justice Lokur referred to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, which show that a woman is raped in India every six hours.
Alarm bells rang when the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) raised grave concerns about 15 of these institutions.
The court would hear the matter next on August 14.
