Delhi High Court: In a case wherein the petitioner raised the issue that despite of various schemes and programmes, the child begging issue remained widespread in Delhi, the Division Bench of Satish Chandra Sharma, C.J. and Sanjeev Narula, J., directed the Government of Delhi to file a detailed status reports regarding children in conflict with law rescued by the Government and housed in various rehabilitation centres, steps taken by the Government for rehabilitation of such children and an assessment of long-term impact of such centres upon children in its care.
In the present case, the petitioner contended that despite the implementation of various schemes and programmes undertaken by various agencies, commissions and government bodies, the issue of child begging remained widespread in Delhi. Therefore, it was crucial to examine the impact of various rehabilitation measures in light of the persistence of the grave social issue of child begging.
The Court observed that a status report had been filed by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR, however, other parties had not been served with a copy of the same. The Court perused the status report filed by DCPCR and found out that certain crucial details in the data furnished by the Commission appeared to be missing, especially with regards to the timelines of operations conducted by DCPCR. Thus, the Court directed DCPCR to strictly comply with the order dated 10-05-2023 and furnish year-wise details of operations conducted by it from 2016 to date. Further, the Court directed the Government of Delhi to file a detailed status report providing information regarding children in conflict with law rescued by the Government and housed in various rehabilitation centres, steps taken by the Government for rehabilitation of such children and an assessment of long-term impact of such centres upon children in its care.
The matter would next be listed on 13-10-2023.
[Yatharatha Foundation v. Union of India, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 5639, Order dated 06-09-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Mr. Kunal Tandon, Ms. Richa Sandilya, Mr. Pranay Kumar, Mr. Akshat Chaudhary and Mr. Harshvardhan Jha, Advocates
For the Respondents: Ms. Hetu Arora Seth, Ms. Bharathi Raju, Ms. Monika Arora, Mr. Subhrodeep Saha, Mr. Yash Tyagi, Mr. Rishabh Jetly, Mr. Santosh Kr. Tripathi, Mr. Kartik Sharma and Ms. Prashansa Sharma, Advocates.
