Juvenile justice and child rights

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (the JJ Act) governs two groups of children, a child being a person under eighteen. A child in conflict with the law is one alleged or found to have committed an offence, and is dealt with by a Juvenile Justice Board. A child in need of care and protection is one who is, among other grounds the Act lists, homeless, abused, orphaned, abandoned or at risk, and is dealt with by a Child Welfare Committee. It replaced the earlier statute of 2000 and proceeds from the idea that the response to a child is rehabilitation and not punishment, and that the ordinary criminal court is not the forum.

Who is a child

The first question in many matters is age. Under section 94 of the JJ Act, the Board or Committee, where a person's age is in doubt, decides it from documents in an order of priority: the date of birth certificate from the school, or the matriculation or equivalent certificate, and failing that the birth certificate given by a corporation, municipal authority or panchayat, and only if none exists a medical age determination test ordered by the Board. A claim of childhood can be raised before any court and at any stage, and the Supreme Court has held that it is not barred by being raised late. The age that counts is that on the date of the offence.

A child below the age of seven cannot commit an offence under section 20 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (section 82 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860), and between seven and twelve the offence depends on the child's maturity to understand the nature and consequences of the act under section 21 (section 83 IPC).

A child in conflict with the law

The Act places an offence by a child in three classes by the punishment prescribed for an adult. A petty offence carries a maximum of up to three years. A heinous offence carries a minimum of seven years or more. Every other offence, including one with a maximum above seven years and no minimum or a minimum below seven years, is a serious offence, as the 2021 amendment made clear. The police unit that deals with children is the Special Juvenile Police Unit, with a child welfare police officer in each station, and a child is not to be placed in a police lock-up or a jail. A child is produced before the Board, which is a Principal Magistrate and two social workers, one of whom is a woman.

The Board has to grant bail under section 12 regardless of whether the offence is bailable, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that release would bring the child into association with a known criminal, expose the child to moral, physical or psychological danger, or defeat the ends of justice. A child who is not released is held in an observation home. The Board's inquiry is not a trial in the usual sense. It takes into account a social investigation report and the child's circumstances, and its orders include advice or admonition, community service, a fine, release on probation, or placement in a special home. The Act forbids a sentence of death or of life imprisonment without the possibility of release for a child.

Preliminary assessment and the Children's Court

The principal exception concerns a child of sixteen to eighteen alleged to have committed a heinous offence. Under section 15, the Board conducts a preliminary assessment of the child's mental and physical capacity to commit the offence, the ability to understand its consequences and the circumstances in which it was committed, and may take the help of experienced psychologists or psychosocial workers. The assessment has to be completed within three months of the child first being produced. If the Board decides that the child be tried as an adult it transfers the case to the Children's Court, which is a Sessions Court designated for the purpose, or a Special Court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The Children's Court then decides after its own examination whether to try the child as an adult or to pass orders as the Board could. If the Board decides otherwise it keeps the case and inquires into it as for any other child. A child tried as an adult is kept in a place of safety until the age of twenty-one and is then evaluated.

A child in need of care and protection

A Child Welfare Committee, with a chairperson and four members, has the final authority on the care and rehabilitation of such a child. A child found in need of care is to be produced before the Committee within twenty-four hours, excluding travel time. The Committee orders an inquiry, receives a report on the child's circumstances and decides on restoration to the family, placement in a children's home, foster care, sponsorship or adoption. The inquiry has a statutory period, which can be extended. Institutions for children must be registered under the Act, and the State inspects them.

Adoption is dealt with in Chapter VIII of the JJ Act. It is regulated by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), and orders of adoption are made by the District Magistrate after the amendment of the Act in 2021, in place of the court. A child must be declared legally free for adoption by the Committee first.

Related law on offences against children

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) sets a separate procedure of special courts and child-friendly trial for sexual offences against a person under eighteen. Where the accused in a POCSO case is himself a child, section 34 of that Act applies the JJ Act, and age is determined in the way described above.

Appeals and the forums in Karnataka

An appeal against an order of the Board lies to the Children's Court under section 101, within thirty days, and from there a revision lies to the High Court of Karnataka. An appeal against an order of the Committee lies to the Children's Court, except for decisions on foster care and sponsorship after care, which go to the District Magistrate. An adoption order of the District Magistrate is appealed to the Divisional Commissioner. Boards and Committees are constituted for each district, including Bengaluru, and the High Court of Karnataka exercises supervisory jurisdiction, including in petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India (the writ jurisdiction) on a child's custody or detention.

What the law does not allow

A child kept in a police lock-up or a jail. A sentence of death, or of life imprisonment without release, on a person who was a child on the date of the offence. A refusal of the plea of childhood because it was first taken late.