Release juveniles if petty offences pending for over 1 year, orders HC

Court terminates with immediate effect cases where probes remain inconclusive

Terming the high pendency of cases pertaining to petty offences committed by juveniles “completely unacce-ptable”, the Delhi High Court ordered immediate release of those minors whose case inquiry remain inconclusive for longer than one year.

A Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani gave the direction after taking into account a submission by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights that 1,903 inquiries against juveniles relating to petty offences were pending before Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) in the Capital as on June 30, 2021.

“And in all cases alleging petty offences against children/juveniles, where the inquiry has been pending and remains inconclusive for longer than one year, regardless of whether the subject child/juvenile has been produced before the JJB, all such inquiries shall stand terminated with immediate effect,” the High Court ordered.

It said a formal order closing all such matters shall be passed by the JJBs in each file within two weeks from the date of the High Court’s order passed on September 29.

“Any children/juveniles detained in relation to such inquiries shall be released immediately without waiting for recording the formal orders,” the court said.

‘Automatic termination’

Section 14 of the Juvenile Justice Act (JJ Act) mandates automatic termination of inquiries against a minor alleged to be in conflict with law in case of “petty offences” if the probe remains “inconclusive” even after four months, and a maximum extension of two months, from the date of first production of the child before the JJB.

However, for any inquiry to begin, the authorities have to first determine the age of the subject. The High Court said the process of age determination itself takes substantial time, because of which matters remain pending before JJBs for even longer than the maximum six-month period prescribed in Section 14.

Worse still, in the past several months, by reason of truncated functioning of courts due to the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic, juveniles are not being produced before the JJBs at all, either in-person or through videoconferencing.

Since it was understood that the time of four months stipulated in Section 14 would begin to run after the date of first production of the child before the JJB, hundreds of matters, including petty offences, have been stuck at various stages for much longer than four months.

The court opined that “even the mere pendency of an inquiry against a child is certainly stigmatic and impacts the dignity of the child”.

“Since Section 14 contemplates a maximum of six months within which the entire inquiry must be completed, it cannot be said that the six-month period would only commence once the subject is declared to be a child,” the court said, adding that the age determination process must be completed within the four-month period, extendible by two months.