The Supreme Court today expressed concern over sexual abuse of children living in shelter homes across the country and asked the Centre what action was being taken in the cases. The Court referred to the data placed before it by the Centre and observed that around 1500 children have been sexually or physically abused in the shelter homes in different parts of the country.
Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, told the Court that she would get instruction on this issue and get back to the court.
Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for Bihar government, told the bench that they have no objection if the social audit report of shelter homes in the state prepared by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences was made public. The bench directed the Bihar government to make the report public.
The Bihar government also told the court that three organisations, including AIIMS (Delhi), were already looking into the psycho-social aspect of the girls who were allegedly raped and sexually abused at a shelter home in Muzaffarpur.