'Juvenile Justice Bill, 2014 - an excellent bill, needs few amendments'

Mangalore, Jul 1: With the proposed Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014 to be tabled soon in the Parliament, Child Line, in collaboration with others, will send in their recommendations and suggestions to the provisions in the newly-drafted Bill to incorporate them into the Bill before it is tabled.

Giving an overview of the proposed bill and placing her observations forward at a discussion on the Bill with students at School of Social Work, Roshni Nilaya here on Tuesday, UNICEF consultant and social worker Sr Dulicine said that while 95 percent of the Juvenile Justice Bill, 2014 was well-defined and well-drafted, certain sections had to be relooked at. Section 14 of the Bill says that if a child above 16 years is in conflict with the law, the child 's maturity, understanding and pre-mediated intention should be taken into consideration in cases of serious crimes such as murder, attempt to murder and rape. This provision needs to be relooked and removed, she said.

“Clause 3 of Section 17 (Clause 3) deals with the treatment of the child in cases of serious crimes. The new drafted Bill states that the Juvenile Justice Board has to complete the procedure of looking into the case within a month, before referring the case to a regular court. We do not want child-related cases to be dealt in regular courts, but in special courts,” she said.

She pointed out that in the entire proposed Bill, the word juvenile ' had been removed and replaced with child ' and hence, either the term juvenile ' has to be defined or the title of the Bill ought to be changed.

She further said that provision pertaining to the composition of the Child Welfare Committee in each district (Section 25) should be rechecked, as it was practically impossible to have the Deputy Commissioner or District Magistrate as the chairperson of the committee, as stated in the draft Bill. The same applies to the district Chief Medical Officer or District Health Officer as a member of the committee. There cannot be a bureaucrat official on the committee, she said, adding that the provision for CWC procedures from the 2006 amendment should be retained.

She also said that high penalty had been prescribed for perpetrators in cases of offences against children, which would be dealt in special courts. Overall, there is a lot of elaboration, clarity and bifurcation on the roles of Juvenile Justice Board, Child Welfare Committees and District Child Protection Officers, which is welcomed, she said.

Speaking on the occasion, advocate Dinesh Hegde Ulepady recommended that the educational qualification of the juvenile police unit should be properly defined and the bill should include provisions regarding the rehabilitation of the mother in cases pertaining to infants.

Child Line assistant director Renny D 'Souza said that the recommendations and suggestions would be documented and sent to the concerned authority by the organisation.