Palamau Observation Home will finally get back its inmates soon while the students of Kasturba Gandhi Kanya Vidyalaya, who were lodged in the remand home, are being shifted to a hostel of Welfare department meant for primitive tribal girls.
“As the building of Kasturba Gandhi Girls’ School is qualitatively not yet up to the mark, we have decided to shift the girls staying there to the nearby hostel of the Welfare Department, meant for the girls of primitive tribe,” said Palamau DC Manoj Kumar. The alternative arrangement for the girls is temporary and will be shifted as soon as possible, after removing the problems, he added.
The district administration was given a deadline by State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) to vacate the building meant for the juvenile offenders till January 15.
“As it was mandatory to vacate the observation home building before January 15, an alternate arrangement has been made for the time being till the school gets prepared for the girls,” added Kumar. The DC, however, admitted that the process of shifting may take another 15-20 days.
As observation home in Palamau was being occupied by Kasturba Gandhi school, the kids in conflict with law had to be shifted to the observation home in Ranchi, which was torturous both for them and their family members. To avoid their children taken to Ranchi, about 165 km from Palamau, the parents deliberately tried to prove their children as adults so that they could be kept in the Palamau jail.
It was found by the SCCPR members during an inspection that that as many 56 inmates lodged in the Daltonganj Central Jail were apparently underage and sharing space with hardened criminals and Naxals. It was also reported by The Pioneer on December 25 last year.
While under the provisions of law, the children in conflict with law have to be lodged at Observation Home and face the trial at the Juvenile Justice Board, based in Daltonganj. The police, while lodging an FIR, also made a wrong assessment of age of the offenders so that they too will not be required to accompany them and take them back for trial.
Under the Juvenile Justice Act, the investigation report has to be filed within 60 days in cases where the alleged offence is liable for a punishment of less than seven years and, within 90 days in cases involving a punishment of seven or more years. Once the minors are booked as adults, they lose all their rights meant to drag them back to the mainstream.
And the juvenile boys in conflict with the law had no other option but to travel 165 km to be lodged at the Ranchi observation home, a process that needlessly delayed their getting justice.