Right to Equality and Juvenile Justice Act 2014

Ms Srishty Banerjee

Assistant Professor

School of Law

THE NORTHCAP UNIVERSITY

The problem of juvenile delinquency prevails in all societies, wherever and whenever a relationship is affected between a group of individuals leading to maladjustments and conflict. In a developing country like India the problem of juvenile neglect and delinquency is considerably low but gradually increasing according to the National Crime Record Bureau Report 2007. What is worrying more is that the share of crimes committed by juveniles to total crimes reported in the country has also increased in the last decade. With an aim of highlighting the international and national provisions of Juvenile Law, NCU School of Law organized a special lecture on ‘Right to Equality and Juvenile Justice Act 2014’ on 10 March 2016 by Prof. Ved Kumari, Professor-in-charge Law Center I, University of Delhi. Prof. Ved Kumari in her lecture compiled the various national and international legal instruments as well as legal provisions of other countries dealing with the issue. She gave analytical view on the various legal protections and penal provisions of juvenile justice system. 

Considering the magnitude of the problem and issues involved, she underlined that the number of factors for neglect and delinquency are mostly common and interrelated, based on socio-economic and psychological reasons. Poverty, broken homes, family tensions, emotional abuse, rural-urban migration, break-down of social values and joint family system, atrocities and abuses by parents or guardians, faulty educational system, the influence of media besides the unhealthy living conditions of slums and such other conditions were explained in the lecture. Prof. Ved Kumari also shared the summations of her experience of over 30 years in the field of juvenile law.