INTRODUCTION
The Juvenile Justice Act contains provisions that pertain to criminal acts that are committed by individuals who are under the age of 18. The Juvenile Justice Act was needed as the crime committed by a minor cannot be punished with the same punishment that would be granted to an adult because minors lack the same maturity as adults and are not able to comprehend fully the consequences of their actions. Moreover, the Juvenile justice Act provides for special courts and special treatment for the child so that the incident that has occurred does not affect the future growth and the development of the child.
EFFECTS OF JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT ON THE INDIAN PENAL CODE
One of the primary objectives of the JJ act was to stop the exposure of delinquents to hardened criminals as more exposure would lead to either the abuse of the minors or inspire them to purse a life as a criminal. Thus, the focus of the JJ act is to rehabilitate the children and ensure their reintegration into the society.[1]
The IPC plays a major role in defining the jurisdiction of the JJ act through Section 82[2] and 83.[3] These sections clearly state that children below the age of 12 cannot be said to have committed an offence if there is no intention and no act of a child below the age of 7 can be considered as an offence. Since children cannot be punished under the IPC, the JJ act was introduced so that they can be rehabilitated.
The interaction of the JJ act and IPC does not end here, the inquiry into crimes committed by children is to be completed within four months of the child being presented before the Juvenile justice board and can only have an extension of two more months.[4] If the child is above the age of sixteen and has committed a heinous crime, the child’s mental and physical capacity and needs to be assessed so as to determine whether the child was able to understand the consequences of the offence or not.[5] After the assessment of the child if it is determined that the child understood the consequences of the actions but did them anyway then the child will be tried as an adult and will be punished under IPC if found guilty in his trial.[6]
If a juvenile is accused of an act and imprisoned so that he can be tried as adult, the age at which the juvenile has committed the crime will be considered not his current age. The same was held in the case of Gurpreet Singh v State of Punjab, in which the accused was sentenced to life imprisonment for the offence of at the age of 16 years and 8 months at the age of 40 he appealed this decision in the Supreme court and claimed that he had already served the maximum sentence of three years which would be granted to a minor. The Supreme court quashed the sentence of life imprisonment[7]. This is due to the effect of Section 18(1)(e) on the IPC, if the Juvenile Justice Act had no effect on the IPC minors could be sentenced to life imprisonment or death penalty for a crime that they committed.
EFFECTS OF JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT ON BAIL
Bail is also an area in which the Juvenile Justice act provides special provisions for minors. Bail must always be provided to the minor even if they are accused of committing a non-bailable offence. The only time when a minor cannot get bail is when giving bail would increase the exposure of the accused with criminals or put the accused in physical, psychological or moral danger. Bail also may not be granted if it defeats the ends of justice i.e., if it puts the rights of the parties involved in danger.
A minor is very likely to be granted bail even in the circumstances of heinous crime as held in the case of Rajinder v. State of Uttar Pradesh[8], in which the minor was accused of rape but the medical report showed no internal or external injuries on the alleged victim. Since the facts were in favour of bail, bail was granted. In order for the minor to not get bail material evidence needed to be brought by the prosecution in order to prove the minor committed the crime. In the case of Prakash v. State of Rajasthan[9], the juvenile was accused of rape and there was no material evidence brought on record showing that the accused committed the rape, the only argument brought on was that rape is a heinous crime. The court held that since there was no material evidence against the accused, bail shall be granted.
EFFECTS OF JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT ON PUNISHMENT OF HENIOUS CRIMES
Death penalty and life imprisonment are also areas that are affected by the Juvenile Justice Act. According to the Act, if there is a case in which the minor is being tried as an adult and is found guilty of the crime cannot be sentenced with either life imprisonment or death penalty. Section 21 of the Juvenile Justice Act clearly states that there should always be a possibility of release whenever a child is given a sentence.[10]
The Juvenile Justice Act also does not allow adversarial trial of the minors accused of a crime- instead, an inquiry is launched and into the case and the Juvenile Justice Board decides on the facts if the juvenile has committed the act, if it is found that he has committed the act then he is not punished but reformative measures are taken so that the minor is rehabilitated.
The wellbeing of a child tried as an adult is an aspect that needs to be kept in mind even if they are convicted of committing a heinous crime. After the Nirbhaya case, new guidelines were created in which it was held that if a minor is tried as an adult and convicted must be detained in a “place of safety” until they reach the age of 21. After they reach the age of 21, it needs to be assessed if they are reformed or not on the basis of which they can be released from custody or further imprisoned in a regular prison.
CONCLUSION
There are many considerations taken in order to ensure the wellbeing of the child who has to go through the justice system with an objective of minimising trauma and maximising reform. There are many things taken into consideration so that the process is smooth and easy for the child going through it. The main motive of our justice system is to rehabilitate the child and reintegrate him into the society rather than them becoming a hardened criminal, the same has been held in cases like Salil Bali v. Union of India.[11]
Laws have been made so that the people in conflict with the law from a younger age don’t need to suffer the consequences of their action all their life in fact the laws for juveniles have been made in such a way that the Juvenile Justice Board doesn’t need to give any minimum punishment for a crime that the juvenile has committed. The Juvenile Justice act has provided a lot of flexibility to the board in how they can choose the juvenile to be rehabilitated. Juveniles are sent to reformatories so that they can learn skills that they can use in the real world. The idea behind that is we don’t need to provide retributive justice but reformative justice.
[1] Section 4a, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
[2] Section 82,Indian Penal Code, 1860.
[3] Section 83, Id.
[4] Section 14, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, supra note 1.
[5] Section 15(1), Id.
[6] Section 19(1)(i), Id.
[7] Gurpreet Singh v State of Punjab 2006 Cr LJ 126, AIR 2006 SC 191 [LNIND 2005 SC 887].
[8] Rajinder v. State of Uttar Pradesh 2006 (46) ACC 187 (All).
[9] Prakash v. State of Rajasthan 2006 Cr LJ 1373 (Raj).
[10] Section 21, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, supra note 1.
[11] Sahil Bali v. Union of India (2013) 7 SCC 705.
YLCC would like to thank Varchasva Agarwal for her valuable insights in this article.
