In pursuance of Section-4 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of
Children) Act, 2015 read with rule-3 of the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016, the State Government constitutes Juvenile Justice Boards in the districts time to time, for exercising the powers & to discharge duties, conferred on such Boards in relation to Children in Conflict with Law under this Act and Rule.
As per section-8 of the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act, the Board shall, notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force but save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act, have power to deal exclusively with all proceedings under this Act, relating to children in conflict with law. The powers conferred on the Board by or under this Act may also be exercised by the High Court and the Children’s Court, when the proceedings comes before them in appeal, revision or otherwise.
As per Sub-section 3 of Section-8 of the Juvenile Justice (Care &
Protection of Children) Act, the Board shall perform the following functions, namely:-
a. ensuring the informed participation of the child and the parent or guardian, in every step of the process;
b. ensuring that the child’s rights are protected throughout the process of apprehending the child, inquiry, aftercare and rehabilitation;
c. ensuring availability of legal aid for the child through the legal services institutions;
d. directing the Probation Officer, or in case a Probation Officer is not available to the Child Welfare Officer or a social worker, to undertake a social investigation into the case and submit a social investigation report within a period of fifteen days from the date of first production before the Board to ascertain the circumstances in which the alleged offence was committed;
e. adjudicate and dispose of cases of children in conflict with law in accordance with the process of inquiry specified in section 14;
f. transferring to the Committee, matters concerning the child alleged to be in conflict with law, stated to be in need of care and protection at any stage, thereby recognising that a child in conflict with law can also be a child in need of care simultaneously and there is a need for the Committee and the Board to be both involved;
g. disposing of the matter and passing a final order that includes an individual care plan for the child’s rehabilitation, including follow up by the Probation Officer or the District Child Protection Unit or a member of a non-governmental organisation, as may be required;
h. conducting inquiry for declaring fit persons regarding care of children in conflict with law;
i. conducting at least one inspection visit every month of residential facilities for children in conflict with law and recommend action for improvement in quality of services to the District Child Protection Unit and the State Government;
j. order the police for registration of first information report for offences committed against any child in conflict with law, under this Act or any other law for the time being in force, on a complaint made in this regard;
k. order the police for registration of first information report for offences committed against any child in need of care and protection, under this Act or any other law for the time being in force, on a written complaint by a Committee in this regard;
l. conducting regular inspection of jails meant for adults to check if any child is lodged in such jails and take immediate measures for transfer of such a child to the observation home; and
m. any other function as may be prescribed.
Ineffective working of Juvenile Justice Board:
There are many instances which might contribute to the concluding of the fact that the juvenile justice board is currently crumpling with insufficient funds,distorted infrastructure and lacking facilities to carry out its functions that it ought to carry out with full diligence. One of such instance is that the escape of 34 juveniles from Chennai’s Kellys juvenile home in 2016. Those who have been brought back confessed that they did such an act to escape from the torture in the home. There are several haunting truths inside juvenile homes that prove that the juvenile justice board is incapable of controlling even the basic functions that has been endowed to them. The current vocational training programmes that are being provided to the juveniles are of cooking, tailoring and hair cut. As per today’s times, such vocational training programmes stand outdated and cannot comply with the new existing market and practices that are followed and thus the juveniles don’t take interest in learning out of the courses. Even when the training/learning of computer science was introduced, most of the inmates created a ruckus by breaking. Several studies have been made that reflected the haunting episodes which are uncontrolled and not monitored by the juvenile justice board. There are number of complaints and cases where a juvenile is beaten up by the police authorities as soon as he is brought in an observation home and later by the senior inmates. They are forced to accept their involvement in criminal cases.
Many observers have documented the tendency of police to arrest and detain children in inhuman condition without good reason. In an incident, a 14-yearold juvenile from Jamnagar was sodomised allegedly by the four boys at the observation home on Gondal Road, Rajkot. They allegedly also beat four inmates with polymer pipes and two of the accused forced others to perform oral sex. They also filmed the victims naked. The peon who was on duty when the incident took place at the observation home, did not made any attempt to stop this incident or to report this incident. It has been found that in many cases the perpetrators are staff members including caretakers, security guards, etc in the observation homes. As per the report of Careshare India, it was even called as ‘pillai jail’ because of the overburdening of inmates. Scare hygiene, insufficient nutrition, lack of space, lack of drainage systems, water shortage-all this makes the children prone to contagious diseases and low hygiene levels in the homes.
All these indicate the lack of effective working of the juvenile justice board. There are several reasons for such incongruous nature of boards such as overcrowding, lack of community support etc. There are several problems that a juvenile justice board has to encounter with which they are not looking into. In such condition, empowering them with the discretion of deciding the fate of many juveniles is a threat to justice.
Measures should be been taken by the board instead of depriving the juveniles of rehabilitative scope. Instead of imposing the threat of punishments, law could have made arrangements that would help the juveniles reintegrate into the society.
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