MADURAI: Noting an alarming increase in misuse of ‘1098’ child helpline, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently directed the Tamil Nadu chief secretary to frame guidelines to ensure that officials responding to complaints received through the helpline record the statements of children in a transparent manner without inducing, tutoring or coercing them to make allegations against any person, including their family members.
Justice KK Ramakrishnan gave the direction when he came across a case in which a minor girl from Virudhunagar, who had called the child helpline to resolve a quarrel between her parents, was allegedly forced by the helpline officials and the officials of the child welfare committee to give a complaint stating that her father had subjected her to “bad touch”.
Allowing the bail petition filed by her father based on the girl’s statement to the magistrate under Section 164 CrPC, the judge ordered the IG (South Zone) to conduct inquiry against the officials concerned and file a report to the court on July 2.
He further directed the Virudhunagar collector to pay Rs 1 lakh to the girl for the trauma of being forced to make such allegations against her father. The judge observed that there is an alarming trend in cases of similar nature wherein the child welfare officials induced the victim to make sexual misconduct allegations against their own family members, though the victims had merely called the helpline to ventilate grievances arising out of domestic discord between their parents.
“Such practices not only traumatise the child further, but also undermine the sanctity of the process contemplated under child protection laws,” he observed.