Nearly 24 hours after Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary allegedly revealed the identity of a minor victim in the Jamui incident, not a single state agency has acted — and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav is now threatening to drag every delinquent authority into court under POCSO Act, 2012.

In a pointed post on Friday, September 25, Tejashwi accused Choudhary of committing a 'serious crime' by publicly disclosing the identity of the minor survivor along with her family. The charge is legally specific: Section 23 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 expressly prohibits any person — including public officials — from revealing the name, address, school, or any detail that could identify a child victim of a sexual offence.

Which agencies Tejashwi says have gone silent

Tejashwi listed a striking roster of bodies he says have failed to move: Bihar Police, the Social Welfare Department, the State Women's Commission, the Bihar State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, and the Law Department. The breadth of the list is deliberate — each of these bodies carries an independent statutory or executive obligation to protect child victims and enforce POCSO's confidentiality mandate. By naming all of them, Tejashwi is arguing that the system's silence is institutional, not incidental.

He has also demanded that Chief Minister Choudhary offer a public apology. As of the post, no apology had been tendered.

The POCSO Section 23 lever — and what it means

Section 23 of POCSO 2012 is one of the statute's sharpest provisions. It bars media and any person from disclosing the identity of a child victim, and violations can invite criminal proceedings. Critically, the law does not carve out an exemption for elected officials or constitutional post-holders. Courts across multiple states have previously taken cognizance of complaints against public figures for POCSO identity-disclosure violations — which is precisely the legal pathway Tejashwi says he intends to pursue.

'यदि मुख्यमंत्री पर कोई कार्रवाई नहीं होती है तो फिर पॉक्सो अधिनियम-2012 की धारा 23 के अंतर्गत हम कानूनी विकल्प तलाश सभी पक्षों को कठघरे में खड़ा करेंगे' — ('If no action is taken against the Chief Minister, we will explore legal options under Section 23 of the POCSO Act 2012 and hold all parties accountable'), Tejashwi wrote.

Bihar's recurring fault line over crimes against women and minors

This confrontation fits a pattern in Bihar's political landscape, where the RJD-led opposition and the ruling NDA alliance have repeatedly clashed over law-and-order incidents involving women and children. Opposition leaders routinely invoke POCSO and other gender-protective statutes to pressure the state government — but framing the charge directly against the Chief Minister himself, and publicly giving a 24-hour deadline before legal action, raises the stakes considerably.

The next move belongs to the institutions Tejashwi named. If Bihar Police, the child rights commission, or any other body initiates even a preliminary inquiry against the CM, it would mark an extraordinary moment in the state's political history. If they do not, Tejashwi's threatened court petition could force that question before a judge.

Either way, the silence of Bihar's protective machinery — for a full day after an alleged POCSO violation by its own Chief Minister — is now a political and legal fact on the record.