Orphanage wears deserted look as inmates sent back to native places after court’s order

Anirudh Gupta 

Ferozepur, June 16 

Set up in 1877 by Swami Dayanand Saraswati to provide shelter to orphaned children of the region, the Arya Anathalya today wore a deserted look for the first time as most of the inmates who belonged to Jharkhand were sent to their home state. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had earlier ordered that inmates who did not belong to the state be sent back to their native places within a year.

Today, out of 46 inmates at the centre, 43 were repatriated under supervision of the district administration and the Child Welfare Department.

As per information, the orphanage had applied for registration under the Juvenile Justice Act, following which it came to fore that most of the inmates belonged to other states, and most of them were not orphans.

 The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) denied the registration of the orphanage as per Section 95-1 of Juvenile Justice Act, following which the management of the orphanage filed a case in the High Court. However, the high court, on July 4, 2019, instructed the management to shift the inmates to their native places by March 3, 2020. 

Out of 96 orphanage inmates, 49 inmates who belonged to Jharkhand were sent back by the orphanage management last year. However, even after the expiry of the stipulated time, they had not sent back the rest of the children. Due to this, the District Child Protection Officer issued a letter dated May 15, 2022, to the orphanage management last month asking them not to violate the court order and  shift the rest of the inmates by May 30. 

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