Serious issue: Supreme Court on cases of missing children
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday voiced concern over a news report that claimed that every eight minutes, a child goes missing in the country, and described it as a serious issue.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan said the adoption process in the country is complicated and asked the Centre to streamline the mechanism.
"I have read in a newspaper that every eight minutes, a child goes missing in the country. I don't know if this is true or not. But this is a serious issue," Justice Nagarathna observed orally.
The top court remarked that as the adoption process is rigorous, it is bound to be flouted and people go for illegal means to have children.
During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, sought six weeks time for appointing a nodal officer to handle cases of missing children.
The apex court, however, refused to grant six weeks and asked the ASG to complete the process by December 9.
On October 14, the bench had directed the Union government to instruct all States and Union territories to depute a nodal officer to handle cases of missing children and to provide their names and contact details for publication on the Mission Vatsalya portal operated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
It had directed that whenever a complaint regarding a missing child is received on the portal, the information should be simultaneously shared with the respective nodal officers.
The top court had earlier asked the Centre to create a dedicated online portal under the aegis of the home ministry to trace missing children and investigate such cases.
It had underlined the lack of coordination among police authorities entrusted with the job of tracing missing children in States and Union territories in the country.
The court had said the portal could have a dedicated officer from each state who could be the in-charge of missing complaints besides disseminate information.
NGO Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan had moved the top court and highlighted unresolved cases of kidnapping or missing children besides the actions required to be taken on the basis of information available with the Khoya/Paya portal monitored by the government of India.
The petition illustrated its argument with five cases registered in Uttar Pradesh last year in which minor boys and girls were kidnapped and trafficked through a network of middlemen to states like Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
