The Hon’ble Supreme Court on 28th May 2021, Friday, during the hearing based on an urgent application made by the amicus curiae, expressed distress over children orphaned by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Hon’ble Court remarked that precious time was being lost in identifying these uprooted children who may by now starving on the streets.
According to a government report, a total number of 577 children were orphaned in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These children are mostly from families that had a hand-to-mouth existence. Hit with the effect of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic which is claiming more deaths, their lives have become even more desperate, which we see in the form of abandoned children starving on the streets.
The Hon’ble Bench constituting of Hon’ble Justice L. Nageshwara Rao and Hon’ble Justice Aniruddha Bose with a grim appearance, in addressing the Centre and States on the issue, said “days are passing by without children getting any food… hope you will understand the agony these children are undergoing on the streets… we do not know the age of these children starving on the streets of how many of them are there in such a large country”.
The Hon’ble Court also directed the country-wide district authorities to immediately address the plight of the children by identifying and providing them with the basic requirements like food, clothes, and a roof over their heads.
The Hon’ble Justice Rao, on the number of identified, orphaned children, said that the actual numbers may be much more. Wherein the Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati representing the centre also stated that there is an anticipation in the rise of the number of orphaned children.
