Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2026 Supreme(Online)(SC) 1751

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
J.B. Pardiwala, K.V. Viswanathan, JJ
Pinki – Appellant
Versus
State of Uttar Pradesh – Respondent
M.A.No.729/2025 in Crl.A. No. 1927/2025

Advocates:
For the Appellants/Petitioners: Aparna Bhat (Amicus Curiae), Mayank Sapra, Karishma Maria, Lalima Das, Saumya, Saransh Khandelwal, Abhi Sharma
For the Respondents: Garvesh Kabra, Vikas Bansal, Pooja Kabra, Nikita Kabra Jaju, Ankur Agnihotri, Rajasmit Mondal, Shubhangi Tuli, Amit Sharma, Vivek Jain, Baani Khanna, Robin Singh, Kapil Balwani, Komal Thakkar, Arjun Garg, Arushi Kulshrestha, Saaransh Shukla, Muskan Bensla, Mrinmoyee Das, K. V. Bharathi Upadhyaya, Pritama, Shaivani Gupta, Sunita, Bipin Vinayak Chandan, Sufyan Hasan, Hema Malik, Swaran Deep Singh, Avneesh Arputham, Ankit Sharma, Bishwajit Dubey, Vinayak Sharma, Ravinder Kumar Yadav, Yashvardhan Shah, Kritika Yadav, Gopal Jha, Tilak Vij, Nimish Arjaria, Shreyash Bhardwaj, Shireesha Sharma, Umesh Kumar Yadav, Sawan Datta, Abhikalp Pratap Singh, Aagam Kaur, Kartikey, Kashish Jain, Siddharth Garg, Kshitij Mittal, Saurabh Rajpal, Nidhi Jaswal, Enakshi Mukhopadhyay Siddhanta, Lenin Singh Hijam, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, Karun Shamra, Anupama Ngangom, Rajkumari Divyasana, Manisha T. Karia, D.s. Parmar, Sarthak Raizada Ga, Harmeet Singh Ruprah, Karan Singh, Sanjai Kumar Pathak, Shashi Pathak, Arvind Kumar Tripathi, Ruhi Sultana, Robin Kumar, Shweta Jayshankar Dwivedi, Ashish Kumar Sinha, Binita Jaiswal, Varinder Kumar Sharma, Swati Ghildiyal, Neha Singh, Archana Pathak Dave, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Shantanu Verma, Ankita Chaudhary Rathi, Jagdish Chandra, Raman Yadav, S.N. Terdal, Mukesh Kr. Verma, Indira Bhakar, Shashwat Parihar, Priyadarshini Priya, Yogesh Vats, Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, K. Enatoli Sema, Amit Kumar Singh, Chubalemla Chang, Prang Newmai, Yanmi Phazang, Amit Kumar, Avijit Mani Tripathi, Z.H. Isaac Haiding, T.k. Nayak, Marbiang Khongwir, Aditya Kumar, Jayant Mohan, Meenakshi Chaterjee, Adya Shree Dutta, Dorjee Ongmu Lachungpa, Priyanshu Teotia, Sameer Abhyankar, Yachna Sharma, Arushi Chopra, Azmat Hayat Amanullah, Rebecca Mishra, Disha Singh, Eliza Barr, Akansha, Anajli Saxena, Parth Awasthi, Pashupathi Nath Razdan, Maitreyee Jagat Joshi, Astik Gupta, Akanksha Tomar, Archana Pathak Dave, Madhulika Upadhyay, Parmod Kumar Vishnoi, Abhinav Singh, Santosh Kumar Pandey, Nidhi Mittal, Shrirang B. Varma, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Shuvodeep Roy, Saurabh Tripathi, Deepayan Dutta, Aravindh S., Anika Bansal, Aadithya Aravindh, Devina Sehgal, Srikanth Varma Mudunuru, Yatharth Kansal, Bhakti Vardhan Singh, J Tarun Kumar, Narendra Kumar Pandey, Ankit Khatri, Sauvik Singh, Aman Panwar, Naveen Sharma, Swati Bhushan Sharma, S.k. Sharma, Payal Gola, Manav Kaushik, Guntur Pramod Kumar, Prerna Singh, Dhruv Yadav, Naveen Kumar, Ujjawal Kumar Rai, Isha Baloni, Rishabh Chaudhary, Sudhanshu Pathak, Lakshay Singh, Pragya Prachi Pandey, Prabhat Sejwar, Utkarsh Chandra, Shailja Singh, Nidhi Singh, Shrijeta Pratik, P. I. Jose, P S Chandralekha, Diksha Rai, Purvat Wali, Sagun Srivastva, Anando Mukherjee, Shwetank Singh, Shreya Bansal, Urmi H. Bansal, Arif Ahmed, Prashant Shrikant Kenjale, Damini Vishwakarma, B Dhananjay, Nishe Rajen Shonker, Anu K Joy, Alim Anvar, Santhosh K, Devika A.l., Abhay Anil Anturkar, Dhruv Tank, Surbhi Kapoor, Sarthak Mrhrotra, Subhi Pastor, Uday Gautam, Aradhya Srivastava, Ahanthem Henry, Ahanthem Rohen Singh, Mohan Singh, Aniket Rajput, Khoisnam Nirmala Devi, Yeshu Mehta, Tanay Hegde, Ravi Kumar Bodhani, Kumar Mihir, Gaurav Bhatia, Rachna Gandhi, Sunny Sachin Rawat, Sudarshan Singh Rawat, Neelmani Guha, Shekhar Raj Sharma, Akshay Amritanshu, Nidhi Narwal, Srishti Jain, Sarthak Srivastava, Apoorv Shukla, Sabarish Subramanian, Prashant Alai, Kunal Mimani, Avijit Mani Tripathi, Upendra Mishra, P.S. Negi, Avijit Mani Tripathi, Z.H. Isaac Haiding, T.K. Nayak, Marbiang Khongwir, Aditya Kumar, Bhavani S. Patnaik, Devartha Kumar Sharma, Hitesh Kumar Sharma, Anupam Kumar, Akhileshwar Jha, Narendra Palshana

The Court monitors compliance of child trafficking directions, emphasizing the need for effective review committees with clear terms of reference, robust prevention, and rehabilitation mechanisms, and a SOP to prevent trafficking through ART and surrogacy clinics.

Headnote:(A) Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 - Section 143 - Human trafficking - Definition and punishment - Exploitation includes physical/sexual exploitation, slavery, servitude, beggary, forced removal of organs - Consent of victim immaterial - Punishment enhanced for trafficking of children, multiple persons, and involvement of public servant/police officer.

(B) Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021 - Sections 3, 6, 9, 12 - Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 - Constitution of boards and authorities - Need for prevention of trafficking in ART and surrogacy clinics - Lack of SOP for inter-state coordination and prevention.

(C) Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 - Trafficked child as child in need of care and protection - Individual Child Care Plan mandatory - Rehabilitation and prevention of re-trafficking.

Facts of the case:
The Court is monitoring compliance of directions issued in a judgment dated April 15, 2025 regarding child trafficking. States filed compliance reports and constituted review committees. The amicus curiae submitted a detailed note highlighting gaps in prevention, rehabilitation, and function of review committees. Union of India filed status reports on implementation of ART Act. The Court considered the need for a SOP to prevent trafficking from ART centers.

Findings of Court:
The Court noted that most States have complied with formation of review committees but terms of reference unclear except Gujarat. There is no SOP for inter-state coordination. Anti-Human Trafficking Units lack uniform powers. The Court requested the ASG to respond to the amicus note and listed the matter for further hearing.

Issues: The main issues are the effectiveness of review committees, prevention of child trafficking, and prevention of trafficking through ART and surrogacy clinics.

Ratio Decidendi: The Court emphasized that trafficked children require comprehensive rehabilitation and that the existing mechanisms are insufficient to prevent trafficking. The Court may set up a committee to develop a SOP for prevention and prosecution of trafficking arising from ART and surrogacy clinics.

Result: Listing for further hearing; no final order.

Table of Content
1. court reviews compliance of prior directions regarding child trafficking. (Para 1 , 2)
2. court directs asg to respond and lists matter. (Para 4 , 5)

1. In pursuance of our order dated 08.04.2026, Ms.Aparna Bhat, the learned Amicus brought two things to our notice. First, she pointed out that all States have filed compliance report as directed by this Court in accordance with the prescribed BIRD format. Secondly, she brought to our notice that all States have constituted Review Committee as directed. Her only grievance is with regard to the remit of the Review Committee. According to her, only the State of Gujarat has said something regarding what the committee would do and how it would function. The other States however are silent on this aspect.

2. Today, in the course of further hearing, the learned Amicus has provided a detailed note which reads thus:-

“1. That on April 15, 2025, while disposing of a batch of petitions challenging the grant of bail to certain persons accused of trafficking of children by kidnapping them and selling them through an organized network, this Hon’ble Court passed a series of directions. The status of compliance with respect to the same are as under:

S. No.	Direction	Status of Compliance
1.	81 a) – “We direct the Chief Judicial Magistrate District Varanasi and the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court No. 5 District Varanasi to commit all the three criminal cases referred to in para 9 of this judgment to the sessions court, within a period of two weeks from today without fail.”	Complied
2.	81 b) – “Upon all the three criminal cases being committed to the court of sessions, the concerned trial court shall proceed to frame charge against individual accused persons within a period of one week thereafter.”	Complied
3.	81 c) – “If it is brought to the notice of the trial court that some of the accused persons have absconded or their whereabouts are not known, the trial court shall take steps immediately to secure their presence by issuing non-bailable warrant etc. The trial of the absconding accused shall be separated in accordance with law so that the trial of the other co-accused persons do not get delayed.”	Complied
4.	81 d) – “Once the charge is framed by the trial court in individual cases, the concerned trial court shall proceed with the recording of the evidence preferably on a day-to-day basis and complete the proceedings of the trial within a period of six months.”	Complied
5.	81 e) – “We direct the State Government to appoint three special public prosecutors for the purpose of conducting of the trials well versed in criminal trials at the earliest.”	N/A
6.	81 f) – “We also direct the State Government to provide police protection to the victims and their families pending the trial at the earliest so as to prevent tampering of the evidence.”	N/A
7.	81 g) – “We grant two months’ time to the State Police to trace out all those accused persons who have absconded and are on the run. They shall be apprehended and produced before the court concerned at the earliest.”	Complied
8.	81 h) – “We direct the State Government to ensure that the trafficked children are admitted in schools in accordance with the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and continue to provide support for their education.”	Children eligible have been admitted.
9.	81 i) – “At the end of the trial, the concerned trial court shall pass appropriate orders as regards compensation to the victims under the provisions of the BNSS 2023 including under the Uttar Pradesh Rani Laxmi Bai Mahila Evam Bal Samman Kosh managed by the Child Welfare Committee.”	Complied.
10.	81 j) – “All the State Governments across the country are directed to look into the report of BIRD dated 12.04.2023 more particularly the recommendations, as reproduced by us in para 34 of this judgment.”	Detailed compliance chart annexed
11.	81 k) – “All the State Governments are directe

Click Here to Read the rest of this document

2026 Supreme(Online)(SC) 1751

SUPREME COURT OF INDIAJ.B. Pardiwala, K.V. Viswanathan, JJPinki – AppellantVersusState of Uttar Pradesh – RespondentM.A.No.729/2025 in Crl.A. No. 1927/2025

The Court monitors compliance of child trafficking directions, emphasizing the need for effective review committees with clear terms of reference, robust prevention, and rehabilitation mechanisms, and a SOP to prevent trafficking through ART and surrogacy clinics.

Cases Referred (1)

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
J.B. Pardiwala, K.V. Viswanathan, JJ
Pinki – Appellant
Versus
State of Uttar Pradesh – Respondent
M.A.No.729/2025 in Crl.A. No. 1927/2025