The Supreme Court on Tuesday (December 9, 2025) directed the Union Government to furnish six years of nationwide data on missing children and to appoint a dedicated officer in the Union Home Ministry to ensure effective coordination with States and Union Territories in compiling such information.

A Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan was hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by the non-profit organisation Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan, which highlighted the rising number of children who remain untraced across several States. The Court had earlier directed all States and Union Territories to depute dedicated officers to oversee cases of missing children and to ensure that such details are promptly uploaded on the Mission Vatsalya portal administered by the Women and Child Development Ministry.

Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor-General Aishwarya Bhati informed the Bench that all States and Union Territories had appointed such officers and uploaded their particulars on the portal. She noted, however, that the effective dissemination of information and coordinated use of the platform remained essential to securing meaningful outcomes.

“The Home Ministry and the Ministry of Women and Child Development could hold further consultations and frame a standard operating procedure for the dissemination of information. Enabling the portal is one thing, but the portal has to be used effectively by the stakeholders,” she said.

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The Bench observed that the Home Ministry itself had not nominated a dedicated officer to oversee cases of missing children, despite being the Central coordinating agency. It accordingly directed the Ministry to appoint such an officer within two weeks and to upload the officer’s details on the Mission Vatsalya portal.

“We find that the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Union of India has not appointed a dedicated Nodal Officer for cases of missing children for the purpose of Mission Vatsalya, and hence an officer may be nominated as a dedicated nodal officer, whose details may also be uploaded on the Mission Vatsalya portal,” the Court ordered.

Surge in child trafficking cases

Senior advocate Aparna Bhat, assisting the Court as amicus curiae, apprised the Bench that comprehensive data on the status of investigations into cases of missing children, including how many children were traced and restored to their families, were indispensable to curbing the surge in child trafficking.

“There is a rise in inter-State trafficking and kidnapping cases, and one way to address this is to closely examine data on missing children. With respect to trafficking, how many prosecutions have been initiated? What has happened in those cases so far? Those details are not available. The police networks fall under the Home Ministry, and it is the Ministry that must compile this information,” she submitted. She stressed that such data were critical for ensuring the safe restoration of children to their families and for securing the prosecution of those responsible for trafficking.

Taking these concerns on board, the Bench directed that the Nodal Officer to be appointed by the Home Ministry should convene consultations with the Nodal Officers of all States and Union Territories to collate updated statistics on cases of missing children, the number of children traced, and their restoration to parents, guardians, or child-care institutions.

Ms. Bhati informed the Court that such information had been compiled only until 2020 and that updated data for the subsequent years were required.

Accordingly, the Bench directed that the Nodal Officer to be appointed by the Home Ministry should coordinate with Nodal Officers in every State and Union Territory to compile statistics on cases of missing children from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2025.

“The statistics regarding missing children from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2025, shall be collated. Further, the Nodal Officers of each State and Union Territory shall also collate information from the Director of Prosecution in each State/Union Territory with regard to the prosecution of cases in the matter of missing children and submit those details to the Nodal Officer to be appointed by the Central Government in the MHA,” the Bench ordered.

The Bench directed that this entire exercise be completed within six weeks of the Home Ministry appointing its Nodal Officer. It also impleaded the Department of Women and Child Development, represented by its Principal Secretary, as a respondent in the proceedings.

The Court will hear the matter next on February 10, 2026.