Juvenile Issue in India

Juvenile Issue in India

Recently Government of India has proposed a new amendment in the Juvenile Justice(Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000, which will allow Juvenile aged between 16 to 18 to be tried as adult if he is involved in heinous crime. Friends heinous crimes are Rape, Murder, Loot or Dacoity. As per the new amendments Juvenile Justice Board will have the power to assess whether the Juvenile (aged between 16 to 18) involved in the heinous crime acted as an adult or a child. For this the board will take the help of a psychologist and a social expert.

This is the proposed amendment. We will now look into the main provisions of the act, international situation and the whole issue related to the act.

India is the signatory to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Child 1989, the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for Administration of Juvenile Justice 1985 (Beijing Rules), U.N. Rules for Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty 1990. To fulfill all these obligations Government of India  passed Juvenile Justice Act 2000. According to U.N. and various other international texts, Juvenile, who is below the age of 18, lacks the physical and mental maturity to take responsibility of his/her crime and because their character is not fully developed, they should have the opportunity to be rehabilitated. Some of important provisions of Juvenile Justice Act are:

• There will be a Juvenile Justice Board Which will hear the cases involved juveniles.
• JJB must contain a metropolitan or judicial magistrate and two social workers, one of which will be a woman.
•  Magistrate must have the background in child psychology and child welfare.
• State is required to set up number of institutes to fulfill the requirements of Juveniles.
• State is required to set up observation homes or special homes in every district or group of districts for rehabilitation of Juvenile Children in conflict with the laws.
•  Police must handover the juvenile to special Juvenile Police Unit which will report to JJB with least delay.
• Bail is available to Juvenile in all cases unless JJB finds that release of juvenile will put him/her into any danger or influence of criminals.
• Exposure of Juvenile in Conflict with Law to the media is not permitted.

 According to Juvenile Justice act, the juvenile, who is involved in any crime, will not be subjected to adult justice system.There are some courses of actions like:

• He may be given advice or admonition
• He may be given Counseling
• He may be ordered to do community services
• He may be asked to pay certain fine
• At the most he may be sent to remand home for three years, not more than that.

It is interesting to know that after passing of the act the number of crimes done by Juveniles increase significantly. According to a report by National Crime Record Bureau titled "Crimes in India 2011", number of rapes done by Juvenile increase from from 399 in 2001 to 485 in 2002, to 858 in 2010 to 1149 in 2012. 

Current Issue in India:

The whole controversy regarding Juvenile started after December 2012 rape case(Nirbhaya and Damini and all that....), when we the people of India suddenly woke up from a deep sleep after thousands of rapes and demanded to government to change the laws and punish the juveniles involved in rape and also demanded the capital punishment for rape. Similarly the Supreme Court of India also asked government this year to make some amendments in Juvenile Justice Act so that no person can get away with heinous crimes.

Practices in other Countries:

• In many states of U.S.A., the case of Juvenile is automatically transfered to adult courts if he/she is involved in any heinous crime. They call it Get Though approach
• In U.K., juvenile cases are tried in Youth Court. But if Juvenile is involved in any heinous crime, then the case is transferred to Crown Court, which is similar to Session Court.

Whatever may be the act or proposed amendment or any international treaty, there should be a fine balance between the protection of rights of Juvenile and the justice to the victims of heinous crimes.

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.

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Sources: Wiki, The Hindu, The Indian Express, DNA India.com, Advocatekhoj.com, prsindia.com.