Juvenile justice Act amendments were overdue
The Union Cabinet’s approval to amendments in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, has not come a day soon. From the time she took charge, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi had vigorously pursued the proposal to lift the protective legal shield from juveniles who were accused of heinous crimes like rape and murder. Under the existing Act, even after committing the worst crimes, juveniles, defined by law as being under 18 years of age, could at most be punished by being sent to a remand home for a maximum period of three years. Many juvenile offenders have escaped being brought to book as a result of this leniency, and many victims and their families have been denied justice as a consequence. The 2012 Nirbhaya incident, in which a juvenile was among those who stand convicted of the crime, kicked off a furore, and the demand to re-visit the juvenile justice Act grew louder.
Since then, there have been many incidents where juvenile offenders were involved in terrible crimes of similar nature. Ms Gandhi was clear in her mind that something had to be done to correct the situation. But the issue being both politically tricky and sensitive, it took many rounds of deliberations before the Cabinet approved the amendments to the Act. The Government had to defy a parliamentary panel on the matter, which rejected a proposal to try as adults, juveniles found involved in major crimes, and many social activists with a similar viewpoint. Of course, there were also as many strident voices in favour of amendments to the juvenile justice law. What came as a shot in the arm for the pro-amendment group was a recent suggestion the Supreme Court gave to the Union Government to review the Act.
This advice was in sharp contrast to the stand the apex court had taken in July 2013, when a three-judge Bench headed by then incumbent Chief Justice Altamas Kabir had found no merit in changing the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. Authoring the verdict, he had said in the backdrop of the 2012 tragedy, “There is little doubt that the incident was not only gruesome, but almost maniacal in its content… But such an incident, in comparison to the vast number of crimes occurring in India, makes it an aberration rather than the rule.” He then went on to add, “If what has come out from the reports of the Crime Records Bureau is true, then the number of crimes committed by juveniles comes to about two per cent of the country’s crime rate.” The court’s dampening observations had put the issue on the backburner. Worse, it enabled, thereafter, serious juvenile offenders a route to remain out of the clutches of the law. Hopefully now, Parliament will grant its approval to the Bill sooner than later, so that juvenile offenders are tried as adults for the grave offences they commit.