Age, Appeals and Revision

In one line

How old the child is, and who may be appealed to about what, are the two questions this chapter answers, and both are asked.

In exam wording: sections 90 to 104 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 provide for the attendance of parents, dispensing with the child's attendance, treatment and transfer of certain children, the presumption and determination of age, transfer, release and leave of absence, confidentiality of reports, appeals, revision, procedure, and the power to amend orders.

Why the law has this at all

Age is the only fact on which the entire Act turns, and it is very often the one fact nobody can prove.

A child brought before a Board may have no birth certificate, may never have been to school, and may not know his own date of birth. If the Act waited for proof, he would be held while it was gathered, which is the very thing it is trying to prevent. So section 94 does two things in order: it lets the Board proceed at once on appearance where the answer is obvious, and where it is genuinely doubtful it fixes a closed ladder of evidence, with the medical test last and time-limited.

And it ends with a sentence that is short and very strong: the age recorded shall be deemed to be the true age of that person. That is what allows everything else in the Act to proceed on a finding rather than on a certainty.

The appeals in section 101 look complicated and are not, once you see that the Act has five different kinds of decision maker, the Board, the Committee, the Children's Court, the District Magistrate on adoption, and the Court of Session on a preliminary assessment. Each gets its own appellate forum, which is why the section has seven sub-sections.

Some words this chapter uses

Ossification test is a radiological estimate of age from the state of the bones.

Escort order in section 95(2) is the direction to the Special Juvenile Police Unit to accompany a child being transferred.

Leave of absence in section 98 is temporary permission to leave an institution.

Sections 90 to 93: attendance, treatment and transfer

Section 90. The Committee or the Board may, whenever it thinks fit, require any parent or guardian having the actual charge of the child to be present at any proceeding in respect of that child.

Section 91(1). If at any stage the Committee or Board is satisfied that the attendance of the child is not essential for the purpose of the inquiry, it shall dispense with his attendance and limit it to the purpose of recording the statement, and the inquiry shall continue in his absence unless otherwise ordered.