Court case(2011) 5 SCC 1

Bachpan Bachao Andolan, an organisation working against child labour, filed a public interest petition describing how children, many trafficked from Nepal and poor districts of India, were bought or lured into circuses, kept in confinement, made to perform dangerous acts, beaten, underfed and sexually abused, in breach of their rights under Articles 21, 23 and 24 and the child labour and juvenile justice laws. Government reports confirmed the abuses.

The Court held that the employment and exploitation of children in circuses violated their fundamental rights and directed the Central Government to issue a notification prohibiting the employment of children in circuses, to conduct raids with the help of the States to liberate the children and check their status, to rehabilitate them in care homes until they could be restored to their parents, and to frame a proper scheme of rehabilitation for the rescued children. The Government notified circus work as prohibited for children under the Child Labour Act.