Juveniles’ involvement in crime is increasing the fastest. Children walk into police stations and say we have murdered… send us to a juvenile home
Maneka Gandhi | women and child development minister
New Delhi: Parliament Tuesday passed the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2015, a day after members of the Upper House cutting across party lines agreed that the important legislation should be taken up immediately.
However, members of Left parties walked out of the Rajya Sabha before the Bill was passed, demanding that it should be sent to a select committee of the House.
The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in May.
Asha Devi and Badrinath, parents of the 23-year-old paramedical student who was gangraped by five men and a juvenile on a moving bus in Delhi December 16, 2012, were present in the visitors’ gallery as the Rajya Sabha took up the Bill for discussion.
The Bill provides for the trial of those between 16 and 18 years of age as adults for heinous offences. Also, anyone between the age of 16 and 18 who commits a less serious offence may be tried as an adult if he is apprehended after he attains the age of 21.
Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi said borstals would be set up under the proposed law to house juveniles accused of heinous crimes.
Maneka Gandhi said juvenile crime was being encouraged by the existing law. “Juveniles’ involvement in crime is increasing the fastest. Children walk into police stations and say ‘We have murdered… send us to a juvenile home’,” she said.
Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said juvenile convicts should not be kept in jail with “hardened criminals” and there should be a separate place for them.
“This law will not be applicable in retrospective,” said parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu, which means it will not be applicable in the case of the rape convict who has been freed.
The mother of the victim, who met minister of state for parliamentary affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Tuesday morning, said had the Bill been passed earlier the juvenile convict would not have walked free. “He (juvenile convict) would not have been released if this Bill had been passed six months ago. Though it has been delayed, we want this Bill to be passed in Parliament soon,” Asha Devi had said.
The juvenile, who was under 18 years of age when he was held with five other men for the brutal rape and murder, was tried under the Juvenile Justice Act. He was put in a remand home for three years. IANS