Ranchi, May 12 (IANS): The Jharkhand High Court expressed strong displeasure on Tuesday over the prolonged failure of police to trace a six-year-old girl who went missing from Gumla district back in 2018, issuing summons to all Superintendents of Police posted in Gumla since that year along with all investigating officers, directing them to appear personally before the court. A division bench headed by Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad, while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the missing child’s mother Chandramuni Urain, warned the state government that if police continued to fail in tracing the child, the investigation would be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The court observed that the complete absence of any lead even after nearly seven years pointed to a serious failure of the police machinery, and raised serious doubts about the investigative capacity of the police, terming the prolonged failure to trace the child as deeply disturbing. The bench further noted that despite the case being under the High Court’s scrutiny, police had made no tangible progress and had repeatedly sought more time, making a CBI transfer fully justified under the circumstances.
At an earlier hearing, the state government had informed the court that a special investigation team was conducting searches across several states and that details had been sought from the Railways regarding the travel history of passengers of the relevant age group in 2018, but the court expressed clear dissatisfaction with these submissions. In previous hearings, the Director General of Police and the Gumla SP had personally appeared before the court, yet no meaningful progress had emerged from those appearances. The High Court also recalled that it had previously emphasised the effective use of data and the formulation of standard operating procedures for missing children cases, but noted that no concrete results had been achieved in this particular case. The matter has been listed for further hearing on June 9, when all summoned officers will be required to appear before the court and respond to the questions raised.