JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT: MY LEGAL NOTICE TO CENTRAL GOVERNMENT: Chd-September 23rd- Lawyer sends notice to Central Government, seeking provisions in Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, for introducing sentence upto life imprisonment for juvenile offenders for heinous crimes like murder, rape and NDPS crimes.:- Advocate H.C. Arora has sent legal notice to Secretary, MHA, Secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice, and Secretary, Department of Women and Child Development, seeking amendment of Juvenile Justice Act, 2000. According to the HC Lawyer, this Act claims to be enacted in compliance of the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child, 1989, but as a matter of fact, its provisions grossly violate the said UN Convention. Arora has alleged that Articles 37 and 40 of the UN Convention envisage sentence of imprisonment upto life sentence (with provision for pre-mature release) for juveniles in case of heinous crimes; the UN Convention only prohibits capital punishment on juveniles. UN Convention only mandates the Member Nations to prescribe a particular age of juveniles, below which, they cannot be expected to commit crime. Arora alleges in his notice that the Government of India had not conducted any survey for compiling data regarding commission of crimes by persons below the age of 18 years, and have enacted the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 on the basis of erroneous presumption that persons below 18 years of age cannot commit crime. Thus, the definition of “juvenile” as contained in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 requires to be changed. Referring to recent incidents of gang rapes committed by accused led by juveniles, Arora has stated in his legal notice that the most gruesome crime of rape was committed recently including 16 December, 2012 gang rape in Delhi where the main accused was juvenile and succeeded in avoiding death penalty since he was few months short of 18 years. Further in two recent cases, one in Mumbai and the other in Assam, both were committed by juvenile. Thus, there is imperative need to revise the age of juvenile (by reducing it to 14 years), or to incorporate some provisions in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 for imposing sentence of imprisonment on juveniles above the age of 14 years, as envisaged under Article 37 (a) as read with Article 40 (3) (a) of the United Nations Convention of 1989. Arora has further pleaded that the maximum sentence of imprisonment of such juvenile can be upto life or provision of premature release by commuting the life sentence. (H.C. ARORA) ADVOCATE
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 01:55:50 +0000
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