File photo of Women and Child Welfare Minister Maneka Gandhi
Incensed with the government's inability to clearly state how many children are missing in India, the Supreme Court today asked if Minister Maneka Gandhi is presenting incorrect information in Parliament, while fining her ministry Rs 25,000.
Mrs Gandhi's Women and Child Welfare Ministry told the court today that about 25,000 children have been reported missing since 2013. But Mrs Gandhi had informed Parliament in a written reply just a few days ago that nearly 80,000 children are missing for the same period, said the petitioner, which is the NGO headed by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi.
"Either the Under Secretary who filed this affidavit is misleading the court or the Honourable Minister is presenting wrong figures to the Rajya Sabha," said the judges. "We don't think the Minister could be misleading the Parliament... it must be the official," they said, warning that strict penalty could follow for the bureaucrat in question.
The government has said it will reconcile the information for the next court hearing a week from now.
Research by Mr Satyarthi's Bachpan Bachao Andolan suggests that a child goes missing every six minutes in India and over 100,000 children go missing each year.