Supreme Court today asked the State of Bihar to submit an Action Taken Report while hearing a matter regarding the Muzaffarpur shelter home abuse case.

The Bench comprising of Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana and Justice Krishna Murari was hearing an application filed by petitioner Nivedita Jha seeking a direction to the State of Bihar to file an Action Taken Report pursuant to the recommendation of the Central Bureau of Investigation to initiate disciplinary proceedings against erring officers and blacklisting NGOs involved.

The Counsel for Petitioner had submitted in his application that it was because the Supreme Court was not satisfied with the investigation carried out by the State Police that the same was handed over to the CBI which investigated 16 shelter houses and submitted a chargesheet.

It was stated that the CBI had also recommended departmental action to be taken against many District Magistrates, officials of State Government, etc and had also recommended several NGOs to be blacklisted.

The Counsel for Petitioner submitted that despite the intervention of the Courts no status reports have been filed on action taken against the officials.

The counsel appearing for the State submitted that they are ready to submit the report in a sealed cover.

To this, the Chief Justice asked, "Why sealed cover?" The counsel for State apprised the Court of the fact that CBI had been filing reports in sealed covers but the CJI said that, "I am not concerned with that. I am not concerned with the names of the girls, just the names of officers. That doesn't have to be in a sealed cover."