Delays, lapses mar juvenile justice law’s functioning: Report
India's juvenile justice system faces significant gaps, with high case backlogs and inadequate facilities
India’s juvenile justice law promises quick hearings, rehabilitative environments and strong oversight. The “Juvenile Justice and Children in Conflict with the Law: A Study of Capacity at the Frontlines” report released on November 20 by the India Justice Report, a collaborative effort of multiple non-governmental organisations (NGOs) shows how far the system remains from that goal.
The IJR report notes that 9,907 children were in residential facilities in 2022-23. 8,241 or 83% of these children were in Observation Homes, which house children while an enquiry in their case is pending. Only 389 were in Special Homes meant for longer term care of those found to have committed an offence. Another 496 were in Observation-cum-Special Homes, and 781 were in Places of Safety for children aged 16 to 18 who are accused of or have been found to have committed a heinous offence. Fourteen states had no Place of Safety, many states lacked a full set of facilities, and only 40 homes for girls existed across 292 districts that provided data.
To be sure, only a small fraction of children in conflict with law enter such custodial institutions because the Juvenile Justice Act directs police and Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) to release them to their families or place them under supervision in most situations. In 2023, police apprehended 40,036 children, most of them aged between 16 and 18, in 31,365 cases, according to the 2023 Crime in India report published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The large proportion of children being in observation homes is partly the result of overburdened JJBs, which are tasked with discharging cases related to children in conflict with law. While state governments are required to constitute at least one JJB for every district -- there were 707 JJBs across 745 districts in 2023–24 -- one in four lacked a full bench. Among the 362 JJBs that provided data, the workload between November 2022 and October 2023 was 100,904 cases, of which only 45,097 were disposed of. This means the system is adding to its backlog each year, and many children wait months or years for their cases to progress.
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State-level figures reinforce this picture. Madhya Pradesh had 15,689 cases pending out of a total workload of 32,273 cases, as of October 2023, while Odisha had 9,385 and a disposal rate below 18% despite full staffing. Uttarakhand reported the highest disposal rate among large states at 73.7%, though this covered only 9 of 13 JJBs within the state.
“IJR’s study exposes the gaps in our Juvenile Justice system. Despite the passage of 10 years since the implementation of the JJ Act, 2015, it is worrying to find that a quarter of JJBs did not have a full bench and evidence of a substantial number of staff vacancies in child care institutions,” said retired Justice Madan B. Lokur. “This has a detrimental effect on children who fall under its purview,” he added.
Probation services, which serve as a critical alternative to institutionalisation, focusing on community supervision and tailored rehabilitation plans, are also stretched. Thirteen states and Delhi together reported only 197 Legal cum Probation Officers. Only four states had full coverage, which means they had at least one sanctioned and appointed probation officer in each district, and Goa had none. In Delhi each officer was reported to handle more than 800 cases on average, and across ten states for which data was available, 145 officers were responsible for 25,403 cases, which translates to 175.2 cases per officer.
Many custodial homes also reported having no medical officer, although they are mandated to have at least one, and lacked basic educational or skills-training staff. Oversight of homes is also weak. In 15 states, only 810 JJB inspections were recorded although 1,992 should have taken place, and many homes had no record of any official visit during the year.