Efforts by the Madras High Court to safeguard the mental health and psychological well-being of children who witness gruesome crimes have borne fruit, with the Tamil Nadu government agreeing to develop a dedicated framework to deal with such child witnesses.

A Division Bench comprising Justices M.S. Ramesh and V. Lakshminarayanan was disturbed to come across an appeal filed by 27-year-old P. Saravanakumar, who had murdered his elder sister in the presence of her eight-year-old daughter, thereby causing a great amount of mental trauma to the child.

A sessions court in Coimbatore had convicted the appellant and sentenced him to life imprisonment on the basis of the evidence adduced by the child witness, who had watched her uncle brutally kill her mother before dismembering her body.

The judges agreed with senior counsel Abudu Kumar Rajaratinam, representing the appellant, that though there were several guidelines in place to deal with child victims of grave crimes, there were none with respect to the measures to be taken for safeguarding the interests of child witnesses to such crimes.

HC intervenes

The Bench requested State Public Prosecutor (SPP) Hasan Mohamed Jinnah and other law officers to bestow their personal attention to the matter and impress upon government officials to come up with a framework for providing counselling and all other assistance required for the well-being of such child witnesses.

Accordingly, the SPP reverted with a report from the office of the Director General of Police/Head of Police Force (DGP/HoPF), who stated that minor children had been included as witnesses in as many as 161 criminal cases registered by the police across the State between January 2020 and July 2025.

The court was also told that Home Secretary Dheeraj Kumar had chaired a meeting with Social Welfare Secretary Jayashree Muralidharan, Inspector General of Police (crime against women and children) A. Kayalvizhi, Institute of Mental Health Director M. Malaiappan, and Law Department Additional Secretary K. Mahesh Kumar.

The meeting held at the Secretariat on August 20, 2025, was attended by a host of other officials from School Education, Health and Family Welfare, and other departments. Dr. Malaippan gave a presentation on the United Nations guidelines with respect to child witnesses to grave crimes.

Finally, it was decided to constitute an inter-departmental committee comprising officials from Law, Police, School Education, Child Welfare, and Health departments for drafting a framework with detailed guidelines with respect to the role and responsibility of every department in safeguarding child witnesses.

Among many other things, the inter-departmental committee was asked to “propose reporting guidelines for police, teachers, paediatricians and frontline professionals to early identification of children in vulnerable situations and monitor behavioural changes and report concerns.”

A copy of the minutes of the meeting, submitted before the court on Friday (August 22, 2025), also stated: “Media guidelines must be evolved to prevent secondary trauma to children involved in sensitive legal cases. The framework shall build upon existing guidelines by the United Nations, orders of honourable courts, the Witness Protection Scheme, guidelines for recording evidence of vulnerable witnesses and POCSO as well as Juvenile Justice Act guidelines.”

After perusing the minutes and appreciating the interest shown by the State in the matter, the judges decided to hear the case next on August 29, 2025.