The Parliamentary Committee’s opposition notwithstanding, the Women and Child Development Ministry has now made a fresh bid to try juveniles involved in rapes and murders at par with adults.
The proposed Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill has gone through the inter-ministerial consultation and is ready to be placed before the Cabinet. WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi is hopeful of the Bill being passed in the ongoing session.
“We had never proposed to lower the legal age for the juveniles. The new Bill does not even mandate that a juvenile between 16 to 18 years be tried before an adult court, it only says that the offender maybe be tried before a juvenile justice board, which further decides if the crime categorises as “heinous” and is a work of the adult mind,” said Maneka Gandhi, speaking to reporters in the Capital on Sunday.
“If the JJ Board unanimously agrees on the ‘heinousness’ of the crime, then the child is taken in an observation home and then retried before the board when he is 21. The committee then decides whether the juvenile is ready to be released or needs to tried by an adult court,” she said.
“The JJ Board shall conduct an enquiry regarding the premeditated nature of such offence, the mitigating circumstances in which such an offence was committed, the culpability of the child on committing such offence… It will then pass an order for continued adjucation of the case in accordance with the provisions of this Act,” reads the draft of the proposed JJ Bill.
Giving its observation on the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD said children below 18 years are amenable and should be treated in the same manner and “differential treatment” for children above 16 years of age “should not arise.” The JJ Bill was tabled in the lok Sabha last August. The report of the committee comprising JP Nadda and Satyanarayan Jatiya was submitted to Parliament on February 24. Maneka said the Parliamentary Committee’s observations suggest that they have not ‘understood’ the proposals of the Juvenile Justice Bill.
“It is a fact that crimes committed by juvenile are increasing by almost one percent annually, which means at least 8,000 crimes on a conservative estimate, which is a big number,” said Maneka. “We have to stub the problem now. We can’t let the numbers inflate to 50,000. These are heinous crimes and the offenders need to be punished in accordance,” she said.
Recently released figures of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) have revealed that juvenile criminals between 16 and 18 years accounted for more than 60 per cent of the crimes registered against minors in India in 2013. Of the 43,506 crimes registered against minors under the India Penal Code, 28,830 had been committed by those between the ages of 16 to 18.
Presently, under JJ Act, all minors-irrespective of their crime-enjoy umbrella protection. The severest of crimes like murders or rapes attract a maximum punishment of a three-year term in a reformatory.