This refers to the article, “Outrageous! Sad! Not acceptable! Etc, etc” (August 28) by Rajesh Singh. The writer has very correctly pointed out that the judiciary must take cognisance of the rising number of heinous crimes like rape and murder, involving juvenile offenders, and play an important part in ensuring that such offenders do not escape severe punishment on the specious plea of being ‘juveniles'.
Also, every time the matter of lowering the age of juvenile offenders from 18 to 16 years has come up for discussion, the so-called rights activists have fiercely argued against such a move and the lawmakers have been more than willing to not amend the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000.
The role of the judiciary too has been far from satisfactory. Some months ago the Supreme Court refused to consider a plea to lower the age of a juvenile to 16 years. It is truly unfortunate that in our patriarchal society, victims of sex-related crimes are only given lip sympathy, but rogue juvenile rapists are handled with kid gloves.