Read Time: 06 minutes

On the recommendation of its Juvenile Justice Monitoring Committee (JJMC), the Patna High Court on Wednesday took suo moto cognizance in a matter wherein allegations were made by an inmate of a shelter home at Gai Ghat, Patna that she and others were forced to submit themselves to “immoral acts” after being sedated.

Stepping in, the Bench of Chief Justice Sanjoy Karol and Justice S. Kumar directed the Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Social Welfare, Government of Bihar to file his reply in the matter.

However, the Court refrained from issuing any directions at this stage and asked the Bihar Government to examine the matter and file the action taken report on the next date. Court directed the officer to file the report not only in relation to the observations of the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Committee but also to the news reports published both in print and electronic media.

On January 31, 2022, a newspaper had published a report which contained serious allegations against Uttar Raksha Grih (After Care Home), Gai Ghat, Patna which as of now allegedly houses 260 female inmates against the sanctioned strength of 148.

Taking serious note of the issue, JJMC then made its recommendation to the high court praying for suo moto cognizance in the matter. Importantly, in its report, JJMC had also disputed the clean chit earlier given by the social welfare department to the shelter home.

JJMC had stated, "The aforesaid news item in a couple of newspapers is yet again societal/collective failure and shame in not containing such offences even after this State and the nation had read about the happenings in Balika Grih, Muzaffarpur. What is rather surprising for us to note is that no FIR has been registered on such disclosure of the victim."

The Committee had highlighted that "Even more surprising is that the Director of Social Welfare Department has conducted an inquiry and only on the basis of the CCTV footage installed in the After Care Home has come to the conclusion that the accusation made by the so-called victim is baseless and false."

Further, the Committee had alleged that it did not appear that any inquiry was made with the victim girl and such opinion had been arrived at only by seeing the footage of CCTV camera.

Therefore, the committee had requested the Chief Justice of the Patna High Court to take up the matter on the judicial side as a Public Interest Litigation case as early as possible.

The matter has now been posted for further hearing on February 7, 2022.

Case title - In the matter of newspaper report dated 01.02.2022 relating to after Care Home v. The State of Bihar & Ors.