New Delhi--The Union cabinet did not take up proposed amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act on Tuesday after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the meeting that since the matter was sensitive in nature, it should be taken up only after a group of senior ministers had studied its finer points. The amendments would enable heinous offenders aged between 16 and 18 to be tried under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) instead of the JJ Act.
Sources said that when the matter came up for discussion, Modi made it clear that since Parliament is set to reconvene soon, on April 20, it would make sense that senior ministers studied the Act in detail before it is passed by the cabinet and then tabled in Parliament once more.
The cabinet had previously cleared the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014 and sent it to Parliament. However, the Parliamentary standing committee on human resource development, in a report tabled in February, asked for the provision of trying 16-18-year-olds under the IPC to be reviewed as it would go against articles 14 and 15(3) of the Constitution.
A group of ministers, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Law Minister Sadanand Gowda and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu, will now take a closer look at the provisions of the Act before it is tabled in next week’s cabinet meeting.
As per the note sent to the cabinet by the Women and Child Development Ministry, juvenile offenders aged between 16-18, if accused of heinous crimes like rape and murder, should be subjected to an expert evaluation under aegis of the juvenile justice board. If the board deems it fit, they should be tried under the IPC rather than the JJ Act.
Indian Express
