Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and Adult Criterion

The Bombay High Court set aside the order of the Mumbai city Juvenile Justice Board as well as a children’s court which directed a 17-year-old was booked for the murder of his three-year-old neighbour in Mumbai be tried as an adult under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015.

Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 and its Provisions

• The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 provides for Children in Conflict with Law (CCL) to be tried as adults under certain circumstances.
• Under the act, a child is defined as someone who is under age 18.
• The act distinguishes children in the age group 16-18 as a category which can be tried as adults if they are alleged to have committed a heinous offence, one that attracts a minimum punishment of seven years.

This amendment was brought in the backdrop of the gang-rape of a woman (Nirbhaya Case) inside a bus in Delhi in 2012, leading to her death. In that case, one of the offenders was a 17-year-old and was put into the trail in children’s court. This had led to outrage across the country.

The act lists following three criterions for a juvenile to be treated as adult:

• Whether the child has the mental and physical capacity to commit such an offence.
• Whether the child has the ability to understand its consequences.
• The circumstances in which the offence was committed.

If the Juvenile Justice Board finds that the child can be tried as an adult, the case is then transferred to a designated children’s court, which again decides whether the Board’s decision is correct.

Observations made by the Bombay High Court

• Treating children in the age group 16-18 as an adult is not a default choice. The decision must be conscious, calibrated one which fulfils all the statutory criteria.
• Only because the statute permits a child of 16 years and above to stand trial as an adult in case of heinous offence, it did not mean that all those children should be subjected to adult punishment.
• The trial in the regular court is offence-oriented whereas, in the juvenile court, it is offender-oriented. In the children’s court, societal safety and the child’s future are balanced. For an adult offender, prison is the default opinion; for a juvenile, it is the last resort.

These observations by the Bombay High Court are a watershed in the juvenile justice system and it strikes a fine balance between societal safety and juvenile’s future.