ABSTRACT
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) of Children Act is basically a legal framework for justice of juvenile in India. The word ‘juvenile’ is used for the children who are up to 18 yrs. This Act provides special protection to the delinquent juveniles, it also provides framework for the protection and rehabilitation of children in the purview of juvenile justice system. This law was earlier brought in compliance of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).This Act has gone through many amendments, the first amendment took place in 2006, then it again went through an amendment in 2011, and after Delhi Gang Rape Case in 2012, a Bill was passed in Lok Sabah for amendment and it got president’s assent on 31st December 2015.
INTRODUCTION
The first legislation on juvenile justice in India came in 1850 with the Apprentice Act which required that children between the ages of 10-18 convicted in courts to be provided vocational training as part of their rehabilitation process. This Act was transplanted by the Reformatory Schools Act, 1897, the Indian Jail Committee and later the Children Act of 1960. The Juvenile Justice Bill was first introduced in the Lok Sabah on 22 August 1986. This Act was further amended in 2006 and 2011 and is now known as the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2000.
Section 21 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (56 of 2000) as amended by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2006 (33 of 2006)., states that: “Prohibition of publication of name, etc., of juvenile or child in need of care and protection involved in any proceeding under the Act-(1). No report in any newspaper, magazine, news-sheet or visual media of any inquiry regarding a juvenile in conflict with law or a child in need of care and protection under this Act shall disclose the name, address or school or any other particulars calculated to lead to the identification of the juvenile or child shall nor shall any picture of any such juvenile or child shall be published .
While provisions relating to the Juveniles in conflict with law are very important from jurisprudence point of view, this Act becomes very crucial for Children in Need of Care and Protection, as they are very large in number. Therefore Section 29 of the Act provides constituting five members District (Administrative unit in India) level quasi-judicial bodies “Child Welfare Committee”. One of the members is designated as Chairperson. At least one of the members shall be woman. The Committee shall have the final authority to dispose of cases for the care, protection, treatment, development and rehabilitation of the ‘Children in Need of Care and Protection’ as well as to provide for their basic needs and protection of human rights.
THE REVISED ACT OF JUVENILE JUSTICE (2015).
The Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) has been passed by parliament of India. It aims to replace the existing act of 2000 so that the juveniles those who are involved in heinous crimes like rape and are of age group of 16-18 can be considered major and cannot take the plea of being minor.This act came into force from January 15 2016.
Question lies here that what was the reason behind the amendment of the Act?
The answer to this question lies in the Delhi gang rape of 2012, one of the accused who had mainly brutally raped the girl was few months away from being of 18 yrs. Old and therefore he took the plea of juvenile and was therefore he was tried in juvenile court, and the boy got only 3 yrs punishment.
People came on the road to protest when the main accused who brutally raped the girl, and left her in the pain to die can take plea of juvenile: How can he only get 3 yrs of punishment and to in juvenile home, which is not a jail? Juvenile home is a place to correct them not to punish them, to join them from main social stream.
Now my main question comes here he got the maximum punishment prescribed in law to juveniles that is of 3 yrs. After 3 yrs he is free to walk on the road what are the chances that society has no danger from him. According to law he can join the society as he has completed his term so he can be made to join the main stream of society now.
The Amendment is the answer and hope.
In July 2014, Minister of Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi said that they were preparing a new law which will allow 16-year-olds to be tried as adult. She said that 50% of juvenile crimes were committed by teens who know that they get away with it. The Bill will allow a Juvenile Justice Board, which would include psychologists and sociologists, to decide whether a juvenile criminal in the age group of 16–18 should tried as an adult or not.
There are stastics which shows that the juvenile arrest rate is increasing and it has reached the highest level in the last two decades in 1996 and then it has declined by 65% by 2014.
There are also statistics which shows juveniles involvement in mainly crimes which are heinous like rapes
The juvenile arrest rate for rape increased 19% between 2013 and 2014.
SOLUTIONS.
As per my view the amendment in the Juvenile Justice Act will help to decline the crime rates by juveniles, especially the heinous crimes like rapes and murders in which they take the plea of being minor and they easily escape from the punishment. On doing the crime or at the time of committing the crime they don’t think that they are minor but at the time of getting punishment they take the plea of being minor.
By:
Jasjit Pranjal
Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad.
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