Data Reveals UP Police Acted On Less Than 9% Of 1.08 Lakh Missing Person Complaints Since 2024: 'Aghast' High Court Registers PIL

A bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani passed this order, taking strong exception to the prima facie lackadaisical attitude of the authorities in tracing the missing persons.

The Court also took note of the "total lack of seriousness" on the part of the authorities to act upon the missing complaints that are lodged by the State residents.

Briefly put, the bench was dealing with a writ petition filed by one Vikrama Prasad, whose son had gone missing from the State capital in July 2024. Earlier, the Court had termed the petition a "classic example of the casual and cavalier attitude" of the concerned authorities.

Further, on January 29, the division bench noted that the official machinery only got into motion and lodged an FIR into the missing case in December 2025, nearly one and a half years later, and that too, after the High Court had intervened.

It may be noted that the Bench had previously expressed dissatisfaction with a personal affidavit filed by the Commissioner of Police, Lucknow, and therefore directed the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to explain the state-wide mechanism for handling such cases.

The personal affidavit filed by the ACS (Home) on January 29, 2026, relied on data from the Police Technical Services Headquarters. The Court reproduced the relevant Hindi text from the letter dated January 22, 2026, which translates to:

"According to the data available in CCTNS, from 01-01-2024 to 18-01-2026, approximately 1,08,300 missing person registrations have been done, in which details regarding action of person trace has been recorded by the concerned Commissionerate/Districts in approximately 9,700 cases."

Noting that the data is shocking, the Court remarked that the figures indicate a total lack of seriousness with which the authorities take the missing complaints lodged in the state.

The Court also remarked that while it could be argued that the data is incomplete, the affidavit coming from a senior officer of the Home Department must contain the correct data.

Expressing displeasure at the 'lackadaisical attitude' of the state authorities, the bench said that a larger public interest was now involved in the matter

Interestingly, during the hearing, the Bench referred to a circular issued by the State DGP, which mandates that CCTV footage be retained for only two to two-and-a-half months.

The Court said that if authorities do not act with alacrity on a missing person complaint, they would not have any CCTV data to rely on, and this would make the tracing of a missing person virtually impossible.

Thus, registering a PIL over the issues, the matter has been listed for the next hearing on February 5, 2026.