Inquiry by the Board and the Preliminary Assessment

In one line

The Board holds an inquiry, not a trial, and the one thing that can turn a child's case into an adult's is the preliminary assessment under section 15.

In exam wording: sections 14 to 16 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 provide for the inquiry by the Board, the procedure appropriate to each class of offence, the preliminary assessment in the case of a heinous offence alleged against a child of sixteen or above, and the review of pendency.

Why the law has this at all

The 2000 Act drew one line and drew it absolutely: under eighteen, the juvenile system; over eighteen, the criminal courts. After a case in December 2012 in which one of the accused was a few months short of eighteen, that line was argued about more fiercely than any other question in Indian criminal law.

Parliament's answer in 2015 was not to lower the age. It was to keep eighteen, and to create a narrow, procedurally fenced exception: a child of sixteen or above, alleged to have committed a heinous offence, may be sent to be tried as an adult, but only after an assessment of his capacity, and only by an order that is appealable.

Every element of that fence is examinable, and it is worth listing them because an answer that names them is an answer that has understood the section. The offence must be heinous as section 2(33) defines it. The child must have completed or be above sixteen. The Board shall assess three things. It may take expert assistance. The assessment is not a trial. It must be completed within three months. And the order is appealable under section 101(2).

The rest of section 14 is the ordinary machinery, and it too is built on a graded idea: the lighter the offence, the lighter the procedure, running from summary proceedings for a petty offence up to section 15 at the top.

Some words this chapter uses

Inquiry, not trial. The Act uses the word throughout for what the Board does.

Preliminary assessment is the section 15 exercise; the Explanation says expressly that it is not a trial.

Pendency in section 16 means cases waiting before the Board.

Section 14: the inquiry

Sub-section (1). Where a child alleged to be in conflict with law is produced before the Board, the Board shall hold an inquiry in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and may pass such orders in relation to the child as it deems fit under sections 17 and 18.

Sub-section (2), the time limit. The inquiry shall be completed within four months from the date of first production of the child before the Board, unless the period is extended for a maximum period of two more months by the Board, having regard to the circumstances of the case and after recording the reasons in writing.