She is no la Belle Dame sans merci. She is harsh without being cruel, and strict without being offensive. She is considerate, plucky and sensitive without being recalcitrant. Her heart bleeds for those street urchins, rag pickers and other innocent who have been made victims under the circumstances by earning the sobriquet ‘juvenile delinquents’. Jayshree Mohapatra is a Member Magistrate of the Juvenile Justice Board, Puri, a conciliator of the District legal Service Authority, Bhubaneswar, a member of the District Vigilance Cell, Bhubaneswar, a member of the District Bonded Child labour Committee, Puri, a resource person in Women and law, Odisha Police Academy. She has also been assigned with the task of visiting certain jails for reporting on the plight of prisoners. Being the great granddaughter of Pt Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das, she overflows with the honey of human kindness and sympathy. In an interview to The Pioneer, she spoke to Sugyan Choudhury from her Saheed Nagar residence.
How would you justify establishment of the Juvenile Justice BoardsIJ
Originally, we had no such boards in our country. This concept is borrowed from outside. The establishment of such courts is justified on the grounds that we must try to provide correctional measures to such delinquents through such courts and ought to try again to put them in the social mainstream. Such courts came into being in Odisha in 2000.
What are the procedures adopted in the Juvenile Justice BoardsIJ
Whenever a juvenile is produced before us, we want to determine whether the case is a fit one or not to be prosecuted in our courts. Taking into consideration the charges framed against the accused youngster, we ask him or her to produce one of the three things required (1) birth certificate, (2) school leaving certificate, (3) doctor certificate to determine if he or she can be treated as a juvenile. Until we determine the charges framed by the police, we have no right to call the accused as a prisoner. First of all, we depend on the SIR (Social Investigation Report) of the legal Probation Officer belonging to the District Child Development Committee. After taking all facts, circumstances into consideration, we decide whether the delinquent can be granted bail. Unless implicated in very heinous crimes, we grant bail. But meanwhile, proper counselling for vocational training is continued with the boy or girl while the procedures at the court for dispensation of justice go on. The maximum period of stay in our custody is six months and the minimum four months. If at the end of the cases, parents do not turn up to claim back their child, we hand over the child to the proper authority as per law.
During their stay, do you treat them as prisonersIJ
They are allowed to stay in a place which we call as juvenile home. It is never called a prison. They are administered with all facilities for their development so as to enable them to join the mainstream, once their period of confinement is over. In case of certain heinous crimes, we submit the cases for further necessary judgements before the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate Court.
Despite the apex court’s directives, it is often reported that juveniles are arrested when they are in their uniforms.
We have also given clear-cut instruction to police not to arrest the accused children being in their uniforms. But the police at times have no choice but to do so against their will. It has happened many times that the police while carrying such children reach the railway station or the bus-stop areas when the children begin to run away. When the plainclothes police run after the boys, the public shout at them as ‘child kidnappers’ and beat them black and blue. Hence, police have no choice but to put on their uniforms for carrying out their obligations.
What do you do when parents of the miserably poor ones don’t come to claim back their childrenIJ
Indeed, many such cases do happen. In such cases, we have to refer the child to the CWC (Child Welfare Committee). You must be knowing that when a very poor child commits a crime like mobile theft, etc. etc., and is produced before us and if we find him or her helpless, we refer the case to the District legal Service Authority. The DlSA takes all care and provides advocates at its cost to meet the legal expenses of the child. If after the judgement, no one comes to claim back the child, we refer the case to the CWC, which takes care of the child till he or she becomes competent to eke out his or her living after reaching their adulthood.
What are the reasons behind the growth of juvenile crimesIJ
When children from outside the State are reading here with their comfortable parental incomes, our children here are very often subjected to pockets of poverty. Hence, the adolescents take to crimes. Besides, laxity in moral education in schools and colleges are also responsible for the children going astray. And again, I must say charity begins at home, and it is the duty of every parent to educate and make their children aware against stealing or committing crimes.
Do you think the juvenile laws are misusedIJ
It is true that in certain cases, juvenile laws are misused. In some cases, there are links. Master criminals get their works operated through certain children. In such cases, a link leads to another one, and ultimately the master criminal is difficult to be traced out, when the innocent stands defenceless against such perpetrators of crime. The innocent victim fails to identify the mastermind since he knows only one or two of his gang. The master criminal thus escapes the dragnets of law, when the child accused ultimately escapes after maximum three years of punishments, for such capital crimes like murder. In another instance, I can tell you that young girls below 18 knowingly commit sexual crimes and when they conceive, they come to our courts for justice. In such cases, the mothers are reportedly guilty since they have allowed their daughters to commit such an act so that they can avail compensation amount of rupees ten thousand to one lakh as admissible to them under the compensation package in such cases.
What are opinions to bring down the rate of juvenile crimesIJ
Out of my long experience, I can prescribe that moral education in schools and colleges should be made mandatory besides their usual courses of studies. Children are open to the violence of the sky invasion never before in such large measure. It is the duty of all parents, especially the mother, to distinguish which are the items to be viewed by children on TV. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Shivaji was great because Jijabai was greater still as a mother and as a teacher.
What’s the inspiring force behind your career and missionIJ
Being the granddaughter of Kirtimayee Devi, the younger daughter of Utkalmani, I am the great granddaughter of Pt Gopabandhu Das. The spirit of my great grandfather has impelled me to choose a career in such a sphere.