Juvenile Justice Act, 2015: salient features and the Juvenile Justice Board

1. Background

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (Act 2 of 2016) came into force on 15 January 2016 and replaced the Act of 2000. It rests on Articles 15(3), 39(e) and (f), 45 and 47 of the Constitution and on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Beijing Rules (1985), the Havana Rules (1990) and the Hague Convention on inter-country adoption (1993). The immediate trigger was the Delhi gang rape of December 2012, in which one accused was a few months short of eighteen; Parliament responded by allowing children of sixteen to eighteen accused of heinous offences to be tried as adults after a preliminary assessment.

The Act was amended by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2021, in force from 1 September 2022, which gave the District Magistrate a supervisory role and moved adoption orders from courts to District Magistrates. Its references to the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the Indian Penal Code are now read as references to the BNSS and the BNS (section 8, General Clauses Act, 1897).

2. Salient features

• Two classes of children. A child is a person who has not completed eighteen years (section 2(12)). A child in conflict with law is one alleged or found to have committed an offence who was under eighteen on the date of the offence (section 2(13)). A child in need of care and protection is defined in section 2(14) (the homeless, working or begging child, the abused, the abandoned, the missing and others). The first group goes to the Board; the second to the Child Welfare Committee.
• Three categories of offences. Petty: maximum punishment up to three years (section 2(45)). Serious: after the 2021 amendment, minimum punishment of more than three and up to seven years, or maximum of more than seven years with no minimum or a minimum below seven years (section 2(54)). Heinous: minimum punishment of seven years or more (section 2(33)).
• Adult trial for some sixteen to eighteen year olds accused of heinous offences, after preliminary assessment (sections 15, 18(3), 19).
• No death sentence and no life imprisonment without possibility of release for any child (section 21).
• No joint trial of a child with an adult (section 23), and no proceedings against a child under the security chapter of the criminal procedure code (section 22).
• Removal of disqualification and destruction of records (section 24).
• A full scheme of rehabilitation, institutions, foster care, sponsorship and adoption (Chapters VII and VIII), and offences against children (Chapter IX).

3. General principles: section 3

Sixteen principles bind every authority under the Act. The most quoted are: presumption of innocence of any mala fide or criminal intent up to eighteen; best interest of the child; participation (the child’s right to be heard); family responsibility; safety; non-stigmatising semantics; non-waiver of rights; privacy and confidentiality; institutionalisation as a measure of last resort; repatriation and restoration; fresh start (erasing past records); diversion from judicial proceedings; and natural justice.

4. Juvenile Justice Board: constitution (section 4)

• The State Government shall constitute one or more Boards for every district, notwithstanding the Code of Criminal Procedure.
• A Board consists of a Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate of First Class (not the Chief Metropolitan or Chief Judicial Magistrate) with at least three years’ experience, called the Principal Magistrate, and two social workers, of whom at least one shall be a woman. The Bench has the powers of a Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate of First Class.
• A social worker member must have been active in health, education or welfare of children for at least seven years, or be a practising professional with a degree in child psychology, psychiatry, sociology or law.
• Disqualifications: past violation of human or child rights, conviction for an offence involving moral turpitude, dismissal from government service, or child abuse or employment of child labour.
• Induction training within sixty days. A member other than the Principal Magistrate may be removed after inquiry for misuse of power, absence for three consecutive months, or attending less than three-fourths of the sittings in a year.

Procedure (section 7). The Board’s procedure must be child-friendly and its venue must not resemble a regular court. A child may be produced before a single member when the Board is not sitting. At least two members including the Principal Magistrate must be present at final disposal; the majority prevails, and if there is no majority the Principal Magistrate’s opinion prevails.

Continuing jurisdiction (sections 5 and 6). If the child turns eighteen during the inquiry, the Board continues. A person apprehended after eighteen for an offence committed before eighteen is treated as a child during the inquiry.

5. Powers and functions: section 8

The Board has exclusive power to deal with all proceedings relating to children in conflict with law in its area (section 8(1)). Its functions (section 8(3)) include:

• ensuring the informed participation of the child and parent at every step, and protecting the child’s rights from apprehension to rehabilitation;
• ensuring legal aid through legal services institutions and an interpreter where needed;
• directing the Probation Officer to submit a social investigation report within fifteen days of first production;
• adjudicating cases under section 14 and passing final orders with an individual care plan;
• transferring to the Child Welfare Committee a child who is also in need of care and protection;
• monthly inspection of residential facilities for children in conflict with law, and regular inspection of adult jails to find and transfer any child lodged there; and
• ordering the police to register an FIR for offences committed against a child.

6. Age: sections 9 and 94

If a Magistrate not empowered under the Act finds that the person before him is a child, he must forward him to the Board at once (section 9(1)). A claim of juvenility may be raised before any court at any stage, even after final disposal; the court inquires (not on affidavit), and if the person was a child on the date of the offence, sends him to the Board and any sentence it passed has no effect (section 9(2) and (3)).

Under section 94, where the Board doubts the age, it looks in order to (i) the school date of birth certificate or matriculation certificate; (ii) failing that, the birth certificate of a corporation, municipality or panchayat; and (iii) only in their absence, an ossification or other medical test, completed within fifteen days.

• Pratap Singh v. State of Jharkhand, 2005 INSC 58, (2005) 3 SCC 551 (Constitution Bench): the relevant date for juvenility is the date of the offence, not the date of production.
• Abuzar Hossain v. State of West Bengal, 2012 INSC 461, (2012) 10 SCC 489: the plea of juvenility can be raised at any stage, even for the first time in the Supreme Court.
• P. Yuvaprakash v. State, 2023 INSC 676: the order in section 94(2) must be followed; a medical test may be used only where the school and birth certificates are not available.
• Dr. Subramanian Swamy v. Raju, 2014 INSC 221, (2014) 8 SCC 390: the Court refused to read the age of eighteen as depending on mental maturity; the uniform age limit is consistent with Article 14.

How this is examined

The Board’s constitution and powers is a standard 10-mark question (August 2024, February 2025). Start with salient features, then sections 4, 7 and 8 in detail, and close with section 9 and age determination. A question on “competent authorities under the Act” (February 2025, CrPC paper) needs the Board, the Child Welfare Committee, the Special Juvenile Police Unit and the Children’s Court together.