JOIN USLegal experts and academicians have come out against the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2015, passed by the Lok Sabha, contending that sending children to jail was not the way to fight crime against women.
In a statement, vice-chancellors of 11 law universities, including those of Bengaluru-based National Law School of India University and New Delhi-based Indian Law Institute, have said they condemned violence against women but “do not believe that sending the children to jail is the way to curtail it”.
Demanding its withdrawal, they expressed concern that the bill, now pending in the Rajya Sabha, would destroy the future of young children forever and will be detrimental to the safety of women.
Vice-chancellors of Dr Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University (Lucknow), NALSAR University of Law (Hyderabad), National Law University (Jodhpur), Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (Punjab), National University of Advanced Legal Studies (Kochi), National Law University (Cuttack), National Law University and Judicial Academy (Guwahati), O P Jindal Global University (Sonipat) and West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences also supported the move.
“We appeal to the government and parliamentarians to re-examine the bill by holding wide consultations for inclusion of restorative justice to strengthen the existing juvenile justice system instead of the punitive approach contained in the bill,” they said in a joint statement.
Commenting on the issue in the first National Consultation on the bill held here, former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir said the philosophy of having a separate criminal justice delivery system for those who had not attained 18 years of age, based on the findings of the Mac Arthur Foundation, has been ignored.
“At one stroke, the collective wisdom of the world community, garnered out of cautious research, has been wiped out. Knee-jerk reactions do not make good law and can be counter productive in the future,” he said.
Renowned jurist Upendra Baxi acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament to make law but said that “we must not conflate parliamentary supremacy with parliamentary sovereignty”.