Sunday, February 24, 2019
After achieving independence, different states made laws based on the Fence Act -1960 and made many laws. In the Sheila Barse case, the Supreme Court directed the Central Government to make a Child Act for the entire country, which can be implemented equally for children all over the country.
After these instructions, the Child Justice Act was again enacted in 1986, which provided separate judicial arrangements for the juvenile offenders. According to this law, the juvenile offenders will not be sent to jail and will be kept separately in the observation houses and special houses. Child criminals have the right to bail in any crime. Alternative methods of punishment for crimes committed in childhood have been given.
In case of special or exceptional circumstances, if a juvenile delinquent is sentenced to imprisonment, then the punishment should end with the completion of eighteen years of age. Child criminals can not be hammered in any case.
To conduct inquiries and research by child criminals in all the stations, a child welfare officer should be appointed, which may be of the police department's sub-inspector or above. After arresting the uniformed police should not be exposed to the child-culprit.
But if the police feel that a certain child and criminal can not be released on bail, then he can not be kept in the police station. Such child offenders should be presented to the Child Justice Board as soon as possible and it should be taken care that they can not be taken on remand.
It is a declared crime to publish identification of such children or to photograph photos. Under the law, it has been arranged that due to the crime committed in childhood, the future or career of a child can not be interrupted.
But in the Child Justice Act-1986, provisions could not be made in detail for those children, who have not committed any crime and were victim of neglect of their parents or society. Even today, many such children are neglected who are in need of government protection.
For this purpose, the new Children's Justice Act was enacted in 2000, in which children were distributed among two separate categories and their welfare measures were taken. The first category is related to children who have committed a crime. In the new law, more or less provisions were made for them, which were in the 1986 law. The second category was made of children who were neglected and who were in need of government protection.
The provision for the formation of child welfare committee in all districts for this type of child was made, in which the scheme of rehabilitation and welfare of neglected children was planned. Under this law, the government has been instructed to establish child houses. Under the circumstances, the law of the childless children, education, adoption and economic and social rehabilitation are also clearly mentioned in this law.
Obviously there is no shortage of laws for the protection of children. The real problem is to execute them. Even after 63 years of independence, if these efforts are reviewed, then the question still stands in front of whether the projects of rehabilitation of neglected children are meaningful.
If so, then what is the reason that even today many children appear begging at the intersections? Why is the exploitation of child labor? Why are not all children going to school? Why child criminal is locked in prisons? Why are the provisions of the Child Justice Act -2000 not being implemented completely? In order to fully implement the provisions of this law, justice and administrative system have failed in criminal matters.
Childhood is the country's heritage. It is our duty to protect it. Can it be resolved that the provisions of the Children's Juvenile Act can be fully implemented? Can a child be guaranteed under the judicial system of criminal justice that there will be no injustice to children in this system? The Child Justice Act came into being in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's directions in the case of Sheila Baras versus the Government of India. But looking at its direction today, it seems that perhaps even for this law, it is necessary for judicial activism to act properly.