"Police should have been more sensitive in taking steps to trace the minor children of the petitioner, instead of fulfilling the formalities of the standing order," said a vacation bench of justices Kailash Gambhir and S P Garg.
Entrusting a police officer of the rank of additional commissioner the task of personally monitoring the case, the bench asked him to file status report in three days.
"The petitioner has been running from pillar to post to know the fate of his children... Additional commissioner (addl CP) of police, West District is to file a status report by June 18," the bench said.
The bench made the observation after the addl CP told the court that the police has taken various measures, including flashing out wireless messages to all police stations across Delhi, giving advertisement about the missing children in various news papers and apprising the police cell for missing children besides taking other steps as per a 2008 order of the police on missing children.
The court's order came during the hearing of a petition by one Shish Pal Singh, a cylinder distributor, through counsel Major Siya Ram, seeking direction to police to trace his 14 and 12-year-old sons, who have gone missing from Nihal Vihar area in West Delhi since October last year.
The petitioner has named his former tenant as the main suspect saying he along with his accomplices had made ransom call demanding Rs one lakh initially and then Rs 10 lakh later after the children went missing and also claimed that his sons were safe.
Despite the complaint against the suspects, police was not able to trace the children or arrest the culprits, the father said.
