VIJAYAWADA: The High Court, which had earlier took suo motu cognisance of the sale of a three-month-old girl child multiple times, issued notices to the State and Central government, the National Investigation Agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Director General of Police of Andhra Pradesh. The respondents were asked to file a counter and the matter was posted to April 27 for further hearing.
The girl from the family of a mason from Mangalagiri in Guntur district was sold away by her father M Manoj for Rs 70,000 and she changed hands multiple times before being rescued from V Ramesh of Eluru, who brought the infant for Rs 2.50 lakh. Taking cognisance of the media reports, the High Court took the matter as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) for hearing.
Similarly, the Juvenile Justice Committee comprising High Court Justices K Vijaya Lakshmi, G Ramakrishna Prasad and V Sujatha, took cognisance of the media reports of the sale of child born to G Chilakamma of Chintalapudi in West Godavari to a person in Aswaraopet in neighbouring Telangana.
The committee had earlier asked the registry to convert the matter as a Public Interest Litigation.Both the PILs came up for hearing on Wednesday and after serving notices to the State and Centre, NIA, CBI and the DGP in the infant sale case pertaining to Mangalagiri, the court posted the matter to April 27.