Indian
Express: New Delhi: Sunday, 23 February 2020.
Bihar
government in response to an RTI reply had said that there were over 16,000
cases pending
Union
Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday chaired the first meeting of a Group of
Ministers (GoM) to discuss proposed amendments in the Juvenile Justice Act,
including empowering district magistrates to function as ‘administrators’ in
cases against minors. According to the JJ Act, an ‘administrator’ means any
district official not below the rank of a deputy secretary in the state, on
whom magisterial powers have been conferred. The government is mulling to
replace ‘Deputy Secretary’ with ‘District Magistrate’, hoping this would lead
to quick disposal of cases.
“An
administrator is part of the preliminary inquiry whose job is to see whether a
person alleged to be in conflict with law is a minor or not. The administrator
gives his opinion based on the police report. If the administrator finds
involvement of a minor in a crime, the case goes to the Juvenile Justice Board,
where the judicial magistrate gives a final word on both the age of the
juvenile as well as the merit of the case,” an official said.
He
said the main purpose of this proposal to empower DMs to work as administrators
was to reduce pendency and fast -track disposal of cases before Juvenile
Justice Boards. Another senior government functionary explained the ‘rationale’
behind the proposed move, saying every district in the country has a JJB but
most districts do not have a deputy secretary-level official whereas each
district has a DM. Therefore, the proposal, if accepted, would save a lot of
time wasted in sending files from
districts to administrators, usually posted in state capitals.
While
latest data on pending cases before JJBs in the country is not available, there
were as many as 1, 30,572 cases pending as on March 31, 2015 of which Uttar
Pradesh alone had some 34,569 cases pending. There is no state-wise break-up of
the alarming figure available but the Bihar government
in response to an RTI reply had said that there were over 16,000 cases pending.The
ministers who attended the GoM meeting included Ravi Shankar Prasad (Law), S Jaishankar
(External Affairs), Smriti Irani (WCD), Harsh Vardhan (Health) and Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Food
Processing Industries). In January, the apex court had asked the Centre to
urgently fill gaps in the JJ Act 2015 to determine the category of crimes that
are not heinous but still punishable with 7 year jail term like in the case of
heinous crimes like rape and murder.
SC
directive to govt
SC
had asked the Centre to urgently fill gaps in the JJ Act to determine the
category of crimes that are not heinous but still punis-hable with 7-year jail
term