juvenile in conflict with law
Section 2(13) of the JJ Act, 2015 defines a child in conflict with law as one who is alleged or found to have committed an offence and who had not completed eighteen years on the date of the offence. Such a child is not tried by an ordinary criminal court but dealt with by the Juvenile Justice Board, which may pass reformative orders such as advice, community service, fine or stay in a special home for up to three years.
For a heinous offence (minimum punishment of seven years or more) committed by a child aged sixteen to eighteen, the Board makes a preliminary assessment of the child’s mental and physical capacity and may transfer the case to the Children’s Court for trial as an adult. Even then the child cannot be sentenced to death or to life imprisonment without possibility of release. The 2015 Act prefers this phrase to the older “juvenile delinquent”.
Example
The Board held a preliminary assessment under Section 15 before deciding whether the sixteen-year-old juvenile in conflict with law should be tried as an adult.
In Indian law
- Sections 2(13), 15, 18 and 21, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015
See also
juvenile · doli incapax · restorative justice · probation
Read more in the study notes
- Juvenile Justice Act, 2015: salient features and the Juvenile Justice Board (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita)
- Status of the unborn, minors, lunatics, drunken and dead persons (Jurisprudence)
- Crime prevention and crime control (Penology and Victimology)