New Delhi, March 31, 2010: The Supreme Court today ordered an inquiry by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) into trafficking of children from Manipur and Assam to Tamil Nadu on the pretext of providing them better education.

"We would like to have inquiry into the matter," a bench comprising Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and BS Chauhan said while asking the Commission to place its report within four weeks and posted the matter for hearing in May.

The bench said, "There was need for some investigation" as children belonging to the poor families from north-eastern regions were lured by some illegal organizations on the pretext of providing better education.

The apex court was hearing the issue of recovery of 76 children from Assam and Manipur, who were lodged in an unregistered children's home in Kanyakumari district.

It asked the Tamil Nadu government to furnish names of the children who were rescued in January from Kanyakumari district as also that of their parents.

The state government, which filed an affidavit on the issue, said that the probe by the Kanyakumari Superintendent of Police has established that the 76 children from Manipur and Assam were brought to Tamil Nadu by one Rev Paul from the north-eastern region on promise of provi- ding them better education.

Paul, who is absconding, had first admitted the children in a school in Chennai and later moved them to Kerala and subsequently to Kanayakumari from where they were rescued, the affidavit said.

Additional Solicitor General Indira Jaising and advocate Aparna Bhat, who is assisting the court as amicus curaie in the matter, submitted that the matter was of serious concern and some directions by the bench would help in stopping such activities.

During the hearing, the bench said there are some organisations which are engaged in providing education to the poor but there are also some which, on the pretext of providing better education, are receiving huge aid from abroad.

"If children are getting better education then this type of PIL should not come as a problem in genuine cases," the bench said.

However, it said, "It also appears that in the name of providing better education, some organisations must be getting foreign aid.

Initially they admit children and on that basis receive huge grant and invest some part of it on the children".

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