Juvenile Justice Act: procedure for children in conflict with law

1. Apprehension: sections 10, 11 and 13

• A child apprehended by the police is placed in the charge of the Special Juvenile Police Unit or the designated Child Welfare Police Officer, who must produce the child before the Board within twenty-four hours, excluding journey time (section 10(1)).
• In no case shall the child be placed in a police lock-up or jail (proviso to section 10(1)).
• The officer must inform the parent or guardian, and the Probation Officer (or Child Welfare Officer), who submits a social investigation report on the child’s background within two weeks (section 13).
• Every police station has at least one officer, not below the rank of Assistant Sub-Inspector, designated as Child Welfare Police Officer (section 107).

2. Bail is the rule: section 12

A person who is apparently a child, alleged to have committed a bailable or non-bailable offence, shall be released on bail, with or without surety, or placed under the supervision of a Probation Officer or a fit person, notwithstanding anything in the criminal procedure code. Bail may be refused only if there are reasonable grounds to believe that release is likely to:

• bring the child into association with a known criminal;
• expose the child to moral, physical or psychological danger; or
• defeat the ends of justice.

The Board must record reasons for refusal. A child not released is kept in an observation home or place of safety, never in a lock-up. If the child cannot meet bail conditions within seven days, he must be produced for modification of the conditions. The gravity of the offence alone is not a ground to refuse bail.

3. Inquiry: section 14

• The inquiry must be completed within four months of first production, extendable by two months for reasons in writing.
• Preliminary assessment in a heinous offence case must be disposed of within three months.
• If an inquiry into a petty offence remains inconclusive after the extended period, the proceedings stand terminated. For serious or heinous offences further time can be granted only by the Chief Judicial Magistrate or Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.
• Petty offences are tried by summary procedure; serious offences, and heinous offences by children under sixteen, by the summons-case procedure.
• The Board must first satisfy itself that the child has not been ill-treated by the police or anyone else, and must give the child a hearing in a child-friendly atmosphere.

4. Preliminary assessment: section 15

Where a child who has completed sixteen years is alleged to have committed a heinous offence, the Board conducts a preliminary assessment of:

• his mental and physical capacity to commit the offence;
• his ability to understand its consequences; and
• the circumstances in which he allegedly committed it.

The Board may take the help of experienced psychologists, psycho-social workers or other experts. The assessment is not a trial. If the Board decides it should dispose of the matter itself, it follows the summons-case procedure; if it finds a need to try the child as an adult, it transfers the case to the Children’s Court (section 18(3)). Either order is appealable to the Court of Session (section 101(2)).

• Barun Chandra Thakur v. Master Bholu, 2022 INSC 716 (the Gurugram school murder case). The Court held that the preliminary assessment is a delicate task with serious consequences, and that where the Board does not itself have a member with expertise in child psychology, the proviso to section 15(1), though worded “may”, must be read as requiring the assistance of experts. The assessment in that case was set aside and sent back.
• Shilpa Mittal v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2020 INSC 25, (2020) 2 SCC 787. A child of sixteen to eighteen was accused under section 304 IPC, which carries a maximum of ten years but no minimum. The Court held it was not a heinous offence, since heinous means a minimum of seven years, and the child could not be sent for adult trial; until Parliament acted it was to be treated as serious. The 2021 amendment then wrote this category into the definition of “serious offences” in section 2(54).

5. Orders of the Board: sections 17 and 18

If the child has not committed an offence, the Board says so, and may refer him to the Child Welfare Committee if he needs care (section 17). If he has committed a petty or serious offence, a heinous offence while under sixteen, or a heinous offence while above sixteen where the Board has kept the case after assessment, the Board may (section 18(1)):

• (a) allow him to go home after advice or admonition and counselling;
• (b) direct group counselling;
• (c) order community service;
• (d) order the child or parents to pay a fine;
• (e) and (f) release him on probation of good conduct in the care of a parent, guardian, fit person or fit facility, for up to three years;
• (g) send him to a special home for up to three years for reformative services, or, if his conduct makes that unsuitable, to a place of safety.

It may add directions to attend school, vocational training or a therapeutic centre, to stay away from a place, or to undergo de-addiction (section 18(2)).

6. Children’s Court and limits on punishment: sections 19 to 24

• The Children’s Court may decide that the child should be tried as an adult under the criminal procedure code, or that there is no need and inquire as a Board (section 19(1)).
• A child convicted as an adult is kept in a place of safety till twenty-one, with reformative services and annual progress reports; at twenty-one the court decides whether to release him on conditions or send him to jail for the rest of the term (sections 19(3) and 20).
• No death sentence and no life imprisonment without possibility of release (section 21).
• No joint proceedings with an adult (section 23).
• A child dealt with under the Act suffers no disqualification from the finding, and records are destroyed after the appeal period, except where he was tried as an adult for a heinous offence (section 24).

7. Institutions for children in conflict with law

• Observation home (section 47): for temporary reception, care and rehabilitation of a child alleged to be in conflict with law during the pendency of the inquiry. Children are segregated by age, gender, physical and mental status and the degree of the offence.
• Special home (section 48): for rehabilitation of children found to have committed an offence and placed there by an order of the Board under section 18.
• Place of safety (section 49): at least one in each State, for persons above eighteen and children of sixteen to eighteen accused or convicted of heinous offences, with separate arrangements for those under inquiry and those convicted.

How this is examined

“Observation home” (February 2025) and “Special homes” (August 2024) are set as short notes. The procedure is also examined under the 10-mark question on rehabilitation (January 2026) and on the Board’s powers. A problem on a seventeen-year-old accused of murder should be answered as: heinous offence, preliminary assessment under section 15, Children’s Court, place of safety till twenty-one, no death or life without release.