SC: No lowering age of juvenility below 18

‘Notion Of Spurt In Crime By Minors Wrong’

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN 

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected petitions for lowering the age of juvenility from the existing 18 years, turning down a clamour in the wake of the alleged involvement of a 17-year-old in the gangrape of Nirbhaya last December. A string of petitions had pleaded with the court to prevent children in conflict with the law, who were in the 16-18 age group and convicted for heinous crimes, from escaping the rigour of the IPC-prescribed stringent punishment. 
    Rejecting the petition, the apex court said the notion that there was a huge jump in crimes involving juveniles was wrong. A bench of CJI Altamas Kabir and Justices S S Nijjar and J Chelameswar said it would be wrong to adopt a retributive approach towards juveniles at the cost of restorative scheme only on the basis of the wrong notion that there had been a spurt in criminal activity by juveniles. 
    “In recent years, there has been a spurt in criminal activities by adults, not so by juveniles, as the material produced before us show,” said the CJI, who wrote the judgment for the bench. 
    “We do not think that any interference is necessary with provisions of the statute till such time as sufficient data is available to warrant any change in the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and the Rules. On the other hand, implementation of various enactments relating to children would possibly yield better results,” the bench said. The court said it would not be proper to interfere with the juvenile’s age limit, which was raised from 16 to 18 years after proper deliberations in the government and thereafter in Parliament and felt the public clamour was a product of misunderstanding of law relating to the sentencing of juveniles. 
    “The general understanding of a sentence that can be awarded to a juvenile under Section 15(1)(g) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 200, prior to its amendment in 2006 is that after attaining the age of 18 years, a juvenile who is found guilty of a heinous offence is allowed to go free,” the court said. After the 2006 amendment clarified that “even if a juvenile attains the age of 18 years within a period of one year, he would still have to undergo a sentence of three years, which could spill beyond the period of one year when he attained majority”, the bench said. 
    This means, if the 17-yearold in the Nirbhaya case was found guilty by the trial court, then he would be liable to serve a sentence of three years despite being classified as a juvenile. 
    The court possibly had in mind the exception of a juvenile found allegedly involved in the Nirbhaya case, when it said such examples were rare and these should not dictate a change to the Parliament-approved statutory scheme.


Source:::: The Times of India, 18-07-2013, p.09. http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW