MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has directed the social welfare department, police, Tamil Nadu Women Commission and the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights to monitor the effective implementation of the statutes enacted for the protection of women and children in TN.

A bench of justices G Jayachandran and K K Ramakrishnan gave the direction recently while disposing of a Public Interest Litigation filed by petitioners Karthikeya Sivasenapathy and G Karuppasamy Pandian seeking direction to form an all-women protection committee under a retired high court woman judge for receiving and probing into sexual assault complaints.

The petitioners had submitted that people with fake IDs in social media using which innocent women and girls are entrapped and subjected to sexual abuse.

The majority of victims do not get justice and are not given conducive environment to file complaints as well, the litigants had stated. They also sought direction to regulate social media platforms.

Hearing the plea, the judges noted the social welfare department had constituted a Women’s Commission in 2017, consisting of a chairperson and seven members with the department’s principal secretary as an ex-officio member and the director as a member secretary.

If this body functions in consonance with its objective, the protection of women and children would be substantially taken care of, they added and issued the above direction.