Chhattisgarh Legal Services Authority orders inspection of adoption centres amid thrashing incident

The Chhattisgarh State Legal Services Authority (SLSA) has directed district judges to undertake inspection of children homes and adoption centres after an incident of thrashing of two children at an adoption centre came to light in Kanker district, officials said on Tuesday.

All district judges, who are also chairpersons of the respective District Legal Services Authority, have been informed about this immediately and asked to get the inspection done by the DLSA secretary, SLSA member secretary Anand Prakash Wariyal said.

The police on Monday lodged an FIR against a woman staffer of an NGO-run adoption centre in tribal-dominated Kanker for allegedly thrashing two children and took her into custody.

Also Read | Woman thrashes two kids at adoption centre in Chhattisgarh; video goes viral, FIR sought

Taking cognisance of the incident, Chhattisgarh High Court Justice Goutam Bhaduri, who is the executive chairman of SLSA, instructed the Kanker district judge, who is the DLSA chairman, to submit a report in connection with the incident after taking appropriate action, Wariyal said. A directive has also been issued to provide compensation to the two children and free legal aid under the compensation scheme, he said.

Justice Bhaduri also directed the district judges/DLSA chairmen for the inspection of children homes, adoption centres, ashrams (hostels) for children and other such facilities in their respective districts under the NALSA (Child Friendly Legal Services to Children and their Protection) Scheme, 2015, he said.

As per the directive, the inspection will be carried out by the DLSA secretaries during which they should talk to each child inmate separately and get information about their condition and if they are facing any difficulty, Wariyal said.

If any complaint of harassment or assault surfaces during the inspection, then the secretary should take immediate action as per the rules, the directive said. On Saturday, a video surfaced of Seema Dwivedi, superintendent of 'Visheshkrit Dattak Grahan Agency' (Specialised Adoption Agency or SAA), thrashing two children in the facility came to light. As per officials, the incident happened last year.

The adoption centre was run by the NGO Pratigya Vikas Sanstha. Orphaned children below the age of six years are kept in the SAA. Dwivedi was booked under section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The Kanker district administration has suspended the services of the NGO for the facility and recommended to the government to cancel the NGO's registration.

The Woman and Child Development department, which supervises such facilities, has suspended nodal officer (district WCD officer) of Mohla-Manpur- Ambagarh Chowki district Chandrashekhar Mishra, who was then posted as the district programme officer of the department in Kanker, for alleged negligence.