At a packed auditorium inside the Supreme Court on Saturday, Chief Justice of India Bhushan Gavai spoke not with the weight of law alone but with urgency and emotion.
"Technology must serve as a tool for liberation rather than exploitation," he declared, addressing the 10th Annual Stakeholders Consultation on Safeguarding the Girl Child: Towards a Safer and Enabling Environment for Her in India.
The event, coinciding with the International Day of the Girl Child, gathered judges, bureaucrats, educators, and activists - all bound by one concern: the growing threats faced by young girls in India’s digital age.
Justice Gavai reflected on the shift in dangers confronting children today. Once limited to physical spaces, threats now "extend into the vast and often unregulated digital world," he said. From cyberbullying and data misuse to deepfake imagery and digital stalking, the CJI noted that online abuse has reached "an alarming level of sophistication."
The Chief Justice traced this challenge back to social roots, observing that even though India has progressive laws, "many girls across the country continue to be denied their fundamental rights and basic necessities." Issues such as child marriage, trafficking, malnutrition, and female foeticide, he said, persist in new and disturbing forms.
Delivering what many in attendance described as a "sober warning wrapped in hope," CJI Gavai said, "Safeguarding the girl child means more than protecting her from harm - it means nurturing her voice, curiosity, ambition, and self-worth."
He stressed that safety cannot exist "when dignity is denied, voices are silenced, or dreams are constrained by circumstance." Referring to the Constitution's Articles 14, 15(3), 19, and 21, he reminded that the State carries a "solemn obligation to ensure every child can flourish free from fear."
The CJI urged the government to strengthen training for police, educators, and health professionals to respond with “empathy and contextual understanding." Awareness, he said, is often the missing link.
"Too often, well-meaning citizens, upon encountering an abused or trafficked girl, simply do not know what to do," he observed.
CJI Gavai ended on a poetic note, quoting Rabindranath Tagore's Where the Mind is Without Fear:
"That vision remains incomplete so long as the girl child in our country lives in fear - fear of violence, discrimination, or denial of education."
He urged all stakeholders to build a society "where she can hold her head high in dignity," reminding that the true progress of India lies in ensuring that every girl child’s spirit is free.
