Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes: SC hands over case to CBI

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, November 28, handed over the investigation into all the 17 cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of children at shelter homes in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, to the CBI. The Bihar government's request that the investigation of the shelter home cases shouldn't be transferred to the central agency was dismissed and the demand for increasing investigation period by 1 week was also rejected.

Handing over the investigation, the court said: "If the state government had done its job properly, the cases may not have gone to the CBI."

A bench of Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice Deepak Gupta directed the Bihar government to provide all the manpower, resources and logistical support to the Central Bureau of Investigation even as counsel for the state government made a last ditch bid to keep the investigation with the Bihar Police.

On Tuesday, November 27, the Supreme Court faulted the Nitish Kumar government for filing “soft” FIRs in cases dealing with the sexual, mental and physical exploitation of boys and girls in 9 Bihar shelter homes.

The court called the state government's behaviour "shameful" and "inhuman" for not invoking more stringent sections of Indian law (when local police filed FIRs). In the Muzaffarpur shelter home, girls were regularly raped, beaten and terrorised, according to a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

“It's very shameful,” Justice Lokur said. "If a child is being sodomised and you say it's nothing. How can you do this? It's inhuman."

Permitting the CBI to expand its existing team of investigators that was already probed the Muzaffarpur horror, the court said that none of the member of the investigating team would be withdrawn without the permission of the court.

CBI has already begun its investigation Muzaffarpur shelter home case and is expected to file chargesheet by December 7.