THE Bombay High Court has asked the state authorities to exercise care and sensitivity while dealing with the identity of children sent to state-run homes. The court expressed surprise over the lack of a procedure evolved by the state authorities to decide the name of children sent to such homes. It has asked the government to come up with a system for giving names to such children, instead of leaving it to the court. A division bench of Justice S C Dharmadhikari and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi was hearing a petition filed by Mahesh Jagdish Parulekar, through his lawyer Abhay Nevagi. [related-post] Watch Video: What's making news Parulekar, who had got separated from his parents when he was seven years old, had lived in Chembur Children’s Home Society till he was 18 years of age. He had sought rectification in the date of birth recorded in his school leaving certificate, to avail benefits at his government job. An affidavit filed by the women and child department said it would carry out rectification in terms of his date of birth. The state, however, said that it had no procedure in place to give names to orphans. “.there is no procedure prescribed for giving name to the neglected juvenile under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. A child who is in need of care and protection is brought before the Child Welfare Committee or Board, which with a view to give the child a distinct identity, suggests a name,” stated the affidavit. Observing that it expected the authorities to be more careful, the court said, “We are a little surprised that till date no procedure has been evolved to decide the name of the children brought before the committee and thereafter sent to such child care homes.”A prescribed medical procedure is followed to determine the age of such children. However, no norms are in place for naming such children. “We would expect the authorities to be a little more sensitive and careful. Eventually, parental care has to be administered. The services that are required to be rendered by the board and those in charge of such child care homes serve a larger public interest. They should, therefore, be cautious when they suggest the name of a child,” said the High Court. Stating that a identity should be given to the child to enable it to complete all requisite formalities, the court added the child would require a first name, a middle name and a surname for that. “A proper procedure has to be evolved by the authorities and not by the court. If the court is called upon to evolve such a procedure, we would proceed on the assumption that the government officials have fully abdicated their functions and powers. We would expect them to work, rather than leaving everything to us,” said Justice Dharmadhikari, adding that the court’s intervention would be required only if the government failed. “We hope that such an event does not occur,” he said.
