Supreme Court directs CBI to probe 17 shelter home cases in Bihar

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation into cases concerning 17 shelter homes and their owners in Bihar. The development comes a day after the top court lashed out at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government over cases of alleged sexual abuse in shelter homes, including one in Muzaffarpur, in the state.

The top court had on Tuesday termed as "very shameful" and "inhuman" the conduct of Bihar government in not taking appropriate action into allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children at several shelter homes across the state.

A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur had observed that the state was "very soft" and "very selective" in registering FIRs against the perpetrators and asked the Bihar government whether these children were not the citizens of this country.

The apex court also asked the counsel appearing for the Bihar Government as to why FIRs have not been lodged under Section 377 (unnatural offences) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) despite there being allegations that children were sodomised at the shelter homes.

"What are you doing? This is very shameful. You may have filed a detailed affidavit (in the court) but if a child is sodomised, you cannot say that it is nothing. How can you do this? This is inhuman," the bench, also comprising Justice SA Nazeer and Justice Deepak Gupta, had said.

The court also said it was "unfortunate" that despite the report by TISS indicating financial irregularities in some of the shelter homes, no FIR has been lodged regarding this.

"This is the attitude of state of Bihar," the bench said and initially told Bihar's counsel to rectify these issues within 24 hours.

When the state's counsel said seven shelter homes were found to be in good condition in Bihar, the bench said "Seven out of around 110."

"Are we doing any favour to these children? Why cannot we make every shelter home good. Why you should not do this? Are these children not citizens of this country?," the bench said.