Orders Under the 2000 Act

In one line

The Board had seven kinds of order, from advice and admonition to a special home, the special home became a flat three years in 2006, no juvenile could be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, no juvenile could be tried with an adult, and no report could identify him.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 16(1) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 provided that notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any other law, no juvenile in conflict with law shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, or committed to prison in default of payment of fine or in default of furnishing security.

Section 15(1), the seven orders

Where the Board is satisfied on inquiry that a juvenile has committed an offence, it may, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any other law:

(a) allow the juvenile to go home after advice or admonition, following appropriate inquiry and counselling to the parent or guardian and to the juvenile;

(b) direct him to participate in group counselling and similar activities;

(c) order him to perform community service;

(d) order the parent, or the juvenile himself, to pay a fine, if he is over fourteen years of age and earns money;

(e) direct him to be released on probation of good conduct and placed under the care of any parent, guardian or other fit person, on a bond with or without surety, for not more than three years;

(f) direct him to be released on probation of good conduct and placed under the care of any fit institution, for not more than three years;

(g) direct him to be sent to a special home.

Clause (g) as enacted had two limbs. For a juvenile over seventeen but less than eighteen, not less than two years; for any other juvenile, until he ceases to be a juvenile. A proviso allowed the Board, having regard to the nature of the offence and the circumstances, for reasons recorded, to reduce the period.

Clause (g) as substituted in 2006 has one. "Make an order directing the juvenile to be sent to a special home for a period of three years", with the same proviso permitting reduction for reasons recorded.

The change matters both ways. It removed the anomaly by which a fifteen year old could be held for three years and a seventeen year old for two; and it fixed a single term unrelated to the offence.

Section 15(2) to (4), the report and supervision

Sub-section (2). The Board shall obtain the social investigation report on the juvenile through a probation officer, a recognised voluntary organisation or otherwise, and shall take into consideration the findings of that report before passing an order.