HC refuses to entertain petition seeking missing person cell in police stns

New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a PIL seeking the creation of a dedicated cell in each police station in the city for cases of missing persons and said policing should be left to police authorities.The plea also sought the registration of FIRs in all missing person instances, an in-depth probe by CBI in all such cases, as well as the creation of a body headed by a retired High Court Judge to supervise the joint task force to examine the "alarming rise in number of missing people in Delhi".
A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said the PIL by Anand Legal Aid Forum Trust sought "omnibus" relief and was devoid of any specific instances where the police refused to register an FIR.Citing media reports, the petitioner's counsel said the "alarming rise" in the number of missing person cases was a public issue. "Where is the data on how many cases FIR was not registered? Don't file petitions after reading a newspaper in the morning. Simply because you feel something should be dealt with in a particular manner, can you seek a mandamus?" the bench shot back."It is not for the court to direct police how its organisation shall function," it added, dismissing the petition.The counsel for the authorities said the petitioner's case of an "alarming rise" in missing person cases was not correct.Meanwhile, HC issued notice to the Centre, Delhi govt and Delhi Police on another PIL seeking a direction to police to furnish the status of the total untraced persons.A plea by Jayeeta Deb Sarkar also sought a direction to the authorities to formulate and implement a comprehensive protective mechanism and institutional safeguards to prevent the "alarming rise in disappearances".It sought to trace and file a status report on the approximately 53,000 "untraced" persons in the last decade. "In the first 15 days of Jan 2026 alone, 807 people went missing in Delhi; an average of 54 disappearances per day. More chilling is the demographic skew; nearly two-thirds of these were women and girls, exposing a gendered predation that the State machinery failed to curb," the petition alleged.