State Women and Child Development department issued notice to cancel the registration of 16 child care institutions (CCI) along with Nirmal Hriday, a branch of Missionaries of Charity (MoC), on Friday.

Nirmal Hriday came to light in July 2018, when it was allegedly found involved in selling of new born babies. The case came as a shocker for the nation and raised questions on the functioning of CCIs in the State.

The decision to cancel the registration was taken following the report submitted by Jharkhand State Commission for Protection Child Rights (JSCPCR) and district administration recommending shutting down several CCIs in the State, which were violating various norms of Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act.

Director of Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), DK Saxena said, “The report recommended action to be taken against 31 CCIs in the state. We sent show cause notices to them and after getting a reply from them, decided to cancel the registration 16 homes.”

Saxena informed that of these 16 homes, some did not reply  to the show cause notice, a few were not interested in running the homes any further while a few were in such bad shape that they could not have been allowed to function, keeping in mind the safety of the children. “The remaining 15 CCIs have been given a warning and directed to improve their condition so as to function further,” he said.

After the case of ‘baby selling’ at Nirmal Hriday came to light in July 2018, Chief Minister Raghubar Das had directed the JSCPCR to conduct a survey of all the CCIs in the state and submit a status report in a meeting on July 10, 2018.

On July 3, 2018, a couple had filed a complaint at Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Ranchi alleging the workers of Nirmal Hriday selling them a baby, following which an FIR was lodged at Kotwali police station, one nun of MoC and a worker was arrested and four ‘sold’ babies were recovered from various locations in the city. The commission, along with district administration officials, surveyed 116 CCIs and 10 observation homes across the state following which a report was submitted to the CM on October 4.

The 16 shelter homes to be shut down are from various districts including Garhwa, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Ramgarh, Ranchi, Khunti, East Singhbhum, Hazaribag and Chatra.