The Supreme Court has sought the response of states to appointing support persons for the victims of child sexual abuse as per the guidelines prepared by the NCPCR. With its July 30 order, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh gave states 4 weeks time to submit to NCPCR, their responses to the SOP/guidelines framed by the Commission vis-a-vis their implementation. A support person is to provide information, emotional and psychological support, and practical assistance which are often crucial to the recovery of the child. The order came on a plea by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, seeking the implementation of child-friendly and child-protection guidelines in the wake of the 2022 Lalitpur incident in Uttar Pradesh where a 13-year-old child was allegedly gang raped. On October 9, 2023, the SC had asked NCPCR to “formulate model guidelines, based on which states and union territories may frame their rules in respect of support persons under Section 39 of the POCSO Act” after duly consulting all the state governments and the government of union territories. It also asked the NCPCR to initially formulate draft guidelines.
