Lucknow, Feb 5 The Allahabad High Court on Thursday sought all relevant data from the Uttar Pradesh government relating to over one lakh complaints of missing persons registered across the state in the last two years.
A division bench of justices Rajan Roy and A K Chaudhary directed the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and the Director General of Police to remain present through video conferencing on February 23, the next date of hearing, to assist the court.
The Lucknow bench passed the order while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) registered by the court after it took suo motu cognisance of the issue of missing persons.
Appearing for the state government, advocate V K Singh informed the bench that the figure of over one lakh complaints needed to be filtered, as in many cases the missing persons may have been traced but the information was not updated.
He assured the court that updated figures would be placed before it on the next hearing.
Earlier, while hearing a criminal writ petition in the last week of January, the bench had expressed anguish over the fact that more than one lakh complaints of missing persons had been lodged in the last two years, but police action had been initiated in only about 9,700 cases.
Terming the situation "alarming", the bench had observed, "We are aghast at the attitude of the authorities in addressing the complaints pertaining to missing persons which obviously requires a sense of urgency on the part of the authorities."
The issue came to light during the hearing of a criminal writ petition seeking the court's intervention for recovery of the petitioner's son, who went missing in July 2025. During the proceedings, the bench had sought a detailed affidavit from the Additional Chief Secretary (Home).
According to the affidavit, from January 1, 2024 to January 18, 2026, around 1,08,300 complaints of missing persons were registered in the state, of which action had been taken in only about 9,700 cases to trace the missing individuals. In the remaining cases, police were yet to initiate any action.
Taking note of the figures, the bench had expressed pain over what it described as the lethargic approach of the police in tracing missing persons. Considering the matter to be of larger public interest, the court directed its registry to register the issue as a PIL titled "In re: Missing Persons in the State".
