Restore juvenile cut-off age to 16

Chennai: With juvenile crime, especially of the more serious kind being on the rise, there is a growing chorus for restoring 16 as the cut- off age to decide who is a child still and who is not so that those under 18 don’t get away with murder.

The Delhi gangrape that cost a 23-year- old paramedical her life in circumstances that shook the nation’s conscience, saw one of the accused , a juvenile, getting away with merely a three year sentence, setting off a debate on whether it was time to take a re-look at the laws on juve­nile crime.

Legal experts point out that until the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 was passed, juvenile offenders were dealt with under the provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 which treated a male child as juvenile till the age of 16 and a female child until 18.

But the 2000 Act declared that all children under 18 must be treated as juveniles and replaced “Juvenile Courts” and their judicial magistrates with a“Juvenile Justice Board” headed by a magistrate familiar with child psychology and two other social workers to try offenders.

A Sirajudeen, an author and legal expert, says the law operates on the assumption that a juvenile is immature and cannot be held fully responsible for the crime he commits.

It therefore keeps him in special homes till he becomes an adult assuming that he will be mature enough at this point not to repeat his mistake. But in reality you cannot really tell when someone has become mature in thinking, he points out.

In his view it’s likely that children are getting more mentally mature today due to their greater exposure to technology and the media.

“Instead of mechanically treating everyone below 18 as juveniles and limiting their confine­ment until they reach this age, the question of deciding a young offender’s maturity should be left to the courts to decide,” he argues, suggesting that only children below 16 should get blanket protection

.

“After this age, the court concerned should be mandated to decide how mature the young person is and whether he should receive special consideration if he is not yet 18 . if the judges find he is mature enough to know what he is doing, he should be sentenced like any other adult,” Sirajudeen adds.