Judges, police officials, child rights activists and advocates, during a seminar on the effect of implementation of Juvenile Justice Act and the rules made therein, have stressed on the use of social policing and a wider use of humane approach towards the juveniles. A need to introduce secondary education in remand homes was also discussed during the seminar in order to provide better future for the children. “What we have suggested a social policing hub to look after all sort of social issues related to juvenile, human trafficking, women trafficking and other issues, rather than making a nodal officer in the police stations with a responsibility to look into it in addition to crime and problems of regular law and order,” said ADG (CID) SN Pradhan.
According to Pradhan, police officer looking after all sorts of things along with juvenile and other social issues is not going to work in the long run. “Special cadre and designated officer who do not do anything but social policing is the need of the hour,” Pradhan added.
Dignitaries speaking on the occasion also stressed on the regular monitoring of the cases could be a great help to change the situation. “If monitoring is done on the monthly basis, lot of things could be changed, said a participant. “An effective implementation of Juvenile Justice Act 2000 with a humane approach towards the juveniles with the help of social policing was discussed at large during the seminar,” said an office bearer of Jharkhand State legal Services Authority. Other than the primary education, a need to introduce secondary education in remand homes was also sought during the seminar as the children living in the locked premises generally remain deprived of the basic educational rights. Suggestions for introducing vocational training for the children were also made by the speakers. The basic idea was to develop an effective system so that the juvenile justice act is implemented efficiently,” said District Child Protection officer of Garhwa Ashok Nayak. It needs to be reformed and implemented actively in the coming days, he added.
Co-ordination among all the stake holders as well as the Juvenile Justice Boards, Chairpersons of Child Welfare Committees was found to be the major cause of concern. “Training at all levels – CWC, JJB and Police to enter and monitor the database – ‘track the child’ will also be a great help in it,” said a participant.
Reacting to a common grievance of almost all the CWC Chairpersons of lack of infrastructure at the district level, Justice DN Patel assured that they will not have to face any such problem in future as huge fund has been released from the centre for the purpose. Supreme Court Judge Justice Madan B lokur was the chief guest for the programme, presided by Chief Justice R Banumathi of Jharkhand High Court.