No Children Murdered In Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Case : CBI Tells SC

The CBI on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that no children were in fact murdered, as alleged in the Muzaffarpur Shelter Home case, and the skeletons unearthed from the surrounding premises actually belonged to some adults.

Appearing for the probe agency, AG K. K. Venugopal told the bench headed by Chief Justice S. A. Bobde that upon investigation, the statements of some children that as many as 35 inmates of the shelter home had been murdered have been found to be unevidenced. "All 35 girls are alive", he said.

"The investigation (into allegations of rape and sexual assault of children) is complete for all 17 shelter homes and chargesheets have been filed", the CBI asserted.

The court required the status report to be shared with the petitioner.

In pursuance of its earlier observation that the Bihar local police "is not doing its job as expected", the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Madan B. Lokur had in November, 2018 transferred to the CBI the investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse of the residents of 17 children's homes in the state. The 17 child care institutions have been identified as being of "grave concern" in the state's own affidavit.

Subsequently, in February last year, the top court held former CBI Acting Chief M. Nageshwar Rao in contempt for the transfer of Joint Director A. K. Sharma, who was overseeing the investigations in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case, in violation of the court's express restraint. Besides imposing a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh on Rao, to be deposited within one week, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also required him to "sit in a corner of the court until the such time the bench rises for the day".