The Supreme Court has directed the states to file their responses within four weeks on a PIL alleging that on an average 90,000 children go missing in the country every year of which 30,000 remain untraced. A bench of justices Altamas Kabir and J Chelameshwar passed the direction after noting that most of the states have so far not filed their replies despite its directions on the 16th of March. Counsels urged the bench to issue a direction to the Centre to formulate a national plan to tackle the menace of missing children and also to define the term missing children which has not been done so far in any statute.