1. In this writ petition, all the States have been served with notices. They have filed their counter affidavits. Thereafter the report prepared by the National Human Rights Commission was made available to this Court and it is a comprehensive report regarding the trafficking of women and children in various States. Thereafter we directed that each State may file their response to the report submitted by the National Human Rights Commission. We are told that except the States of Punjab and Gujarat, all the States have filed their responses. From the report we see that the trafficking of children and women is prevalent mainly in the States of Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Goa, U.P., Karnataka and Maharashtra. It is also an alarming feature that 9.4% of the trafficked children are below 10 years of age and the rest of the children are in the age group of 16 years to 18 years. Unless the State Governments file their responses, this Court would not be able to give any effective directions in the matter. We direct each of the States to file their response within a period of six weeks. A copy of this order be sent to the Chief Secretaries of the respective State(s) and they shall file their response and suggest remedial measures to tackle this problem. The Union of India has prepared certain suggestions which is being considered by the concerned Ministry. Those suggestions would be filed within a period of four weeks. If there is no response from the States, it would be assumed that the State(s) has no suggestion to make.
2. List after six weeks.