SC refuses to stay CBI probe into child trafficking to Kerala

The Supreme Court on Friday expressed its serious concern over child trafficking as it declined to stay the Kerala High Court order directing CBI investigation into the trafficking of children from Bihar and Jharkhand to the state.

Describing it as a “huge” problem, the social justice bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit however, sought response from the central and Kerala governments on a petition seeking stay of the high court order directing a CBI probe.

“Trafficking of children is a huge, huge problem in Kerala. You cannot say that this organisation is good or that organisation is bad,” the court said in the course of the hearing of the challenge to July 6 high court order directing probe into the detention of a very large number of children in May 2014 by Railway Police in Palakkad who were suspected of being trafficked.

The children had reached Palakkad by train in two batches.

There are allegations that these “trafficked” children are kept in orphanages and subjected to all kinds of exploitation.