The report, which was submitted to the state government in April, highlighted the alleged sexual exploitation of girls at the shelter in Muzaffarpur among other cases. THE SUPREME Court on Tuesday directed the Bihar government to make public the audit report of shelter homes in the state, prepared by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. The report, which was submitted to the state government in April, highlighted the alleged sexual exploitation of girls at the shelter in Muzaffarpur among other cases. Appearing for Bihar government, senior advocate Ranjit Kumar told a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta that the state had no objection to the report being made public. He said this was not done earlier as it was feared that the accused would get an opportunity to cover up. The bench then directed the state government to make the report public. The Centre, meanwhile, told the court that a survey of 9,589 childcare institutions had revealed 1,575 sex abuse victims. The court ordered the Centre to draw up a child protection policy, with the focus on preventing such crimes. “This says that 1,575 children are victims of sexual abuse. What have you done about it? Which are the shelter homes where they are kept? What action the states have taken on this,” the bench asked Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, who placed the report before it. Anand said the report had been shared with the concerned states, but she was not clear if the states had initiated any follow-up action. She told the bench that the survey was conducted between December 2015 and March 2017. It found that 32 per cent of these homes were registered under the Juvenile Justice Act, and 91 per cent were managed by NGOs. Asking how the report was prepared, Justice Gupta asked Anand, “Did they talk to the children? Did they find any sexual or physical abuse? Have they reported?” He sought to know if the states had taken any action. “We can’t shut our eyes to what we find in newspapers every day,” he said. “If these reports have been there for a year, it compounds the negligence of the state,” said advocate Aparna Bhat, who is amicus curiae in the case. Anand said the “mandate” of the survey “was registration and non-registration, and not social audit per se”. The court also asked the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to take into account TISS’s suggestions on how to conduct social audits. The court was considering a PIL on the alleged abuse of girls at the shelter in Muzaffarpur. On August 2, the court had taken suo motu cognizance of the matter, following a letter from a Patna resident. The bench had also issued notice to the Bihar government and Union Ministry of Women and Child Development. The bench had said that investigation in the case should be conducted with the assistance of professional counsellors or qualified child psychologists, appointed in consultation with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, TISS and AIIMS, Delhi. Kumar informed the court that three organisations, including Bengaluru-based Parivartan and AIIMS Delhi, were looking into the psycho-social aspect.