JJ Act At 10: CJI Surya Kant Calls For Separate Wing Of Trained Defence Lawyers For Children

The Chief Justice was inaugurating the National Annual Stakeholders Consultation, held to mark a decade of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.

The consultation was organised by the Supreme Court’s Juvenile Justice Committee, led by Justice BV Nagarathna, together with UNICEF. Shortly before the address, a compendium of landmark judgments under the Act was released. The Chief Justice described it as “a valuable record of how our courts have interpreted” the statute.

CJI built his address around one imagined child: a 15-year-old brought before a Juvenile Justice Board in January 2016, the month the Act came into force, who would now be about 25. “Ten years is a short time in the life of a statute, but it is more than half of its childhood,” he said.

The Chief Justice said the first promise of the 2015 Act lies in its language. The Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 spoke of a “juvenile in conflict with the law”. Parliament in 2015 chose to call every person below 18 a child, and directed that no adversarial or accusatory words be used in any proceeding concerning them.

“This is no mere courtesy, because the phrase child in conflict with law describes the circumstance, not an identity,” he said.

He noted that these children commonly come from interrupted schooling, families under strain, poverty and, at times, substance use, and that most come before the law for the first time. “Very often, the child in conflict with law today was only a little earlier a child in need of care and protection whom we did not reach in time,” he observed.

Restoration Over Retribution Flows from Articles 15(3) and 39 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

“Our answer to such a predicament is restoration and not retribution,” the Chief Justice said. He explained that the Act presumes every person below 18 to be innocent of any criminal intent and treats institutional care as a last resort. It also encourages diversion from formal proceedings and prefers counselling, community service and probation to confinement.

The CJI traced these choices to the constitutional philosophy of Articles 15(3) and 39 and to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. “The 2015 Act thus makes a wager that a child given a second chance is far more likely to become a productive member of the society than one branded as a criminal,” he said.

Trial of 16 to 18 Year Olds as Adults Requires Prior Preliminary Assessment

The Chief Justice acknowledged that the Act allows children between 16 and 18 to be tried as adults for the gravest offences, “though only after careful preliminary assessment of their capacity and circumstances.”

On restorative justice, he said, “It does not ask us to forget the harm that may have been caused. It asks us to remember that the one who has caused is still a child.”

Joint Training of Police, Probation Officers and Board Members Is Needed to Implement the Act

“These are noble promises, but a law can keep them only through the people who carry it out,” the Chief Justice said. He listed the officials a child meets between apprehension and the Board’s final order: a police officer, a probation officer, the Board, a lawyer and perhaps the staff of an observation home. Each of them, he said, must see “not only the offense, but the child behind it.”

He proposed regular training through judicial and police academies that would bring these officials together with psychologists. Such training, he said, “would teach them not only about adolescence, trauma, and poverty, but also how to work with one another.”

Referring to Justice BV Nagarathna’s earlier remark that no single institution can carry the burden of implementing the Act, the CJI added, “After all, those who work together should not be trained in separate rooms.”

The Chief Justice described the social investigation report as “often the only document that tells the board who a young person is rather than what he or she is alleged to have done.” He flagged the shortage of probation officers who prepare these reports, and stressed that no Board should decide a future without first knowing the story behind it.

Right to Be Heard Requires Continuous, Dedicated Legal Representation for Children

“A child must not only be heard, but also be understood, since few young people can speak for themselves before the police or a board, let alone insist on their rights,” the Chief Justice said.

He referred to NALSA’s Child Friendly Legal Services Scheme, 2024, which provides for a lawyer at the police station. Building on it, he asked legal services institutions “to consider creating a separate wing of trained defense counsel for children” so that “the same lawyer continues to assist from the police station to the final board and into rehabilitation.” Such a lawyer, he said, would keep the family informed at every stage and help the Board appreciate the full circumstances of the case.

Individual Care Plans Must Be Implemented, Not Left on Paper

The Chief Justice said the most important work of the Act begins after the Board’s order. Each young person is meant to follow an individual care plan, which he described as “a personal road map covering the completion of schooling, training for work, medical care, counseling, and support for the family.”

“Too often, however, these plans remain only on paper,” he said. He pointed out that “there are not a sufficient number of probation officers to stay in touch with these young people once they return home.”

The CJI suggested that Boards should be in a position to choose counselling or community service over confinement, “so that young people can make amends while remaining at home and in school.” That choice, he cautioned, “exists only where a district has built a network of schools, skilling centers, and voluntary organizations to receive them.” He also proposed mentoring for a fixed period, including for those who turn 18 while the process is still under way.

The CJI called for old records to be destroyed in time and for the names of children in conflict with law to be kept off the internet. “Rehabilitation that ends at the gate of an institution is not rehabilitation at all,” he said. “For reintegration means restoring a young person’s place in family, school and community without stigma," the CJI added.

Independent Evaluation of Outcomes, Not Case Counts, Should Measure the Act

Returning to the imagined 15-year-old, the Chief Justice said whether that child was seen, heard and given a second chance “is a question our courts cannot yet answer.” He called for “regular, independent evaluation that can tell us, with due care for privacy, how many young people return to school, found work and never came before the board again.”

“For ten years we have counted cases. For the next ten years let us also count the lives we have helped rebuild,” he said.

High Court judges, State officers, stakeholders and domain experts will share what has worked in their jurisdictions over the two days of the consultation.

While concluding , the Chief Justice said he hoped “each of us leaves with at least one practice worth carrying forward,” and added, “When we meet again next year, we may speak not only of what this Act promises but of what it has delivered for its children."