Bail of a Child in Conflict With Law

In one line

A child is released on bail whatever the offence, with or without surety or under a probation officer or a fit person, and may be refused only on three welfare grounds for reasons the Board must record, and if he cannot meet the conditions in seven days he goes back before the Board.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: by section 12(1) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, when any person who is apparently a child and is alleged to have committed a bailable or non-bailable offence is apprehended or detained by the police or appears or is brought before a Board, he shall notwithstanding the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 or any other law be released on bail with or without surety, or placed under the supervision of a probation officer or under the care of any fit person.

Section 12(1), the rule and the proviso

The rule. A person apparently a child, alleged to have committed a bailable or non-bailable offence, apprehended, detained, appearing or brought before a Board, shall be released:

• on bail with or without surety; or
• under the supervision of a probation officer; or
• under the care of any fit person.

The proviso, three grounds of refusal. He shall not be so released if there appear reasonable grounds for believing that the release is likely to:

(i) bring him into association with any known criminal; or (ii) expose him to moral, physical or psychological danger; or (iii) defeat the ends of justice.

And the duty that follows. "The Board shall record the reasons for denying the bail and the circumstances that led to such a decision."

Three additions to the 2000 Act's section 12. The three forms of release, of which two are not bail at all; the requirement to record reasons; and, in sub-section (4), the seven day rule.

The three grounds are unchanged. They were the 2000 Act's grounds and they are these, word for word.

Sub-sections (2) to (4)

Sub-section (2), refusal by the police. Where the officer in charge of the police station does not release him, that officer shall cause him to be kept only in an observation home or a place of safety, as the case may be, in the prescribed manner, until he can be brought before a Board.

The words "or a place of safety, as the case may be" were inserted by Act 23 of 2021 with effect from 1 September 2022, which is why a person within section 6, apprehended after eighteen, now has a lawful destination at the police stage as well.