The Supreme Court on Friday refused to lower the age of juvenile from 18 years saying the legislature has fixed the age which is constitutionally permissible. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, rejected two petitions, filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy and parents of December 16 gang rape victim, challenging the constitutional validity of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000.
"If the legislature has adopted the age of 18 as the dividing line between juveniles and adults and such a decision is constitutionally permissible, the enquiry by the courts must come to an end.
"Even otherwise there is a considerable body of world opinion that all under 18 persons ought to be treated as juveniles and separate treatment ought to be meted out to them so far as offences committed by such persons are concerned," the bench, also comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and Shiv Kirti Singh, said.
The petitioners had sought fresh interpretation of the term 'juvenile' in the statute and leaving it to the criminal court, instead of Juvenile Justice Board, to determine the juvenility of an offender in heinous crimes.
They pleaded the juvenile accused in December 16, 2012 gang rape victim be prosecuted in a criminal court in view of the gravity of his offence.
The bench, however, upheld the constitutional validity of the Act and dismissed the petitions. The court said in its 68-page judgement that the object of the JJ Act was to rehabilitate such offenders so that they could become "useful members" of the society later on.
"India has accepted the above position and legislative wisdom has led to the enactment of the JJ Act in its present form. If the Act has treated all under 18 as a separate category for the purposes of differential treatment so far as the commission of offences are concerned, we do not see how the contentions advanced by the petitioners to the contrary on the strength of the thinking and practices in other jurisdictions can have any relevance," it said.
