VIJAYAWADA: Taking suo motu cognisance of the repeated sale of a three-month-old baby, a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court ordered the registry to file public interest litigation, and made senior central and State officials as respondents on Friday.
The bench of justices A Amanullah and G Ramakrishna Prasad took a serious view of the media reports and directed the court registry to convert them as public interest litigation. Observing the incident as a case of human trafficking, the court opined that it has been rampant in the country and also in the State.
After going through the media reports and the observations of the bench, Chief Justice Prasant Kumar Mishra directed to make the secretaries of Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Child and Welfare Department, Director of NIA, Director, CBI, Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh government and the DGP as respondents. The case was posted for further hearing to April 6.
The baby was sold by her father, M Manoj of Mangalagiri, Guntur, for Rs 70,000. She changed hands and was sold to people in both the Telugu states. She was rescued from a person in West Godavari who had bought her for Rs 2.20 lakh.