The Kerala High Court has registered a suo motu petition to inquire into the protection of children from severe instance of domestic abuse and the breakdown of child-welfare alerts.

The petition was taken up by the Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar V.M. on Wednesday in the aftermath of the alleged torture and murder of an 18-month-old, in Nedumangadu in Thiruvananthapuram. The court also directed the State to inform the steps taken in investigation of the the case.

The court orally inquired about the reasons behind the “inaction” of the District Child Protection Officer despite information of the alleged abuse from the child’s grandmother.

The court had considered two incidents of reported child abuses while initiating the petition.

The immediate trigger for the petition was the torture and death of the one-and-a-half-year-old in Nedumangad who sustained over 90 internal and external injuries. Though the child was brought to hospitals for bone fractures before his death, the systematic trauma was never flagged or reported by treating personnel, according to the public interest litigation (PIL).

The court sought to establish strict, binding protocols connecting law enforcement, healthcare institutions, and child welfare officers to secure a mandatory-reporting framework for suspected child abuse.