CHANGING PERCEPTION OF JUVENILE OFFENDER IN INDIA

Abstract

The word ‘juvenile’ basically refers to persons who have not reached eighteen years of age. And juvenile offenders mean children who commit an act which is in conflict with the law. Another word for them is juvenile delinquents or delinquent juveniles. A number of laws have been formulated for the purpose of ensuring protection and care of children and dealing with those in conflict with law. Through the course of time, these laws have undergone major changes and amendments in India with respect to the changing perception of juvenile offenders in the society. To begin with, this paper would be mainly dealing with juveniles in conflict with law, the subsequent changes in their laws and the impact of these changes on the concept of juvenile justice.

 The first Act enacted to deal with juvenile offenders was the Children Act, 1960. However, under this law, there was no uniformity in application of its provisions throughout the country. Therefore, after the case of Sheela Barse v. Union of India, which called for uniformity in implementation of laws for juvenile delinquents, another act was brought in, called as the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. This Act determined a boy under years 16 years of age and a girl under 18 years of age to be a child i.e., the juvenile age limit for boys was 16 years while the same for girls was 18 years. Subsequently, owing to numerous loopholes that this act entailed, a new legislation named the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 was passed. It was formulated keeping in mind India’s international obligations in this regard such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which India ratified in 1992, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, 1985 (the Beijing rules), and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, 1990 as major international standards on juvenile justice and child rights. Under this Act, the age limit for a child or juvenile was made 18 years, irrespective of gender. However, the series of amendments did not stop here. In the aftermath of the infamous 2012 Delhi Gang rape case, large-scale protests started to unfold demanding certain amendments in the existing Act. And as a consequence of this, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 was enacted. The definition of the word juvenile remained the same but a major change that it brought was a reduction in the age of juvenile offenders from 18 years to 16 years for them to be tried as adults as prescribed under the Code of criminal Procedure, 1973 in cases of heinous crimes like rape or murder.