Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday, August 24, asked the Congress government to furnish data on children allegedly sold illegally to couples.
Taking note of alleged child trafficking, the court also sought data on children enrolled in protective facilities across the state. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice Ghouse Meera Mohiuddin directed the Principal Secretaries of the Home and Social Welfare Departments to file counter-affidavits within two weeks.
The data must include details of children aged between two months and one year across the state. The directives were issued during the hearing of a writ appeal filed by Muthuneni Venkanna, a resident of Suraram village in Nalgonda.
Venkanna had purchased a child from Nakka Yadgiri and later filed a petition seeking legal custody of the child. However, a single-judge bench rejected Venkanna’s petition, following which he approached the division bench.
During the proceedings, the division bench expressed concerns over systemic failures in handling child trafficking cases. The court referred to a recent incident in Suryapet, where multiple infants were recovered amid suspicions of illegal adoption.
After the hearing, the court observed that the government had consistently failed to trace the biological parents of recovered children.
The court noted that inadequate investigations were allowing illegal adoption networks and traffickers to evade criminal prosecution. It recommended that the Telangana government devise a programme to monitor school dropouts and missing minors to protect them from child trafficking.
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