Juvenile Justice Boards set for additional role

Juvenile Justice Boards are set to a play major role in effective implementation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014, which was introduced in Parliament today, though they have huge pendency of cases.
The Bill provides that in case a heinous crime has been committed by a person aged between 16 and 18 years, it will be examined by Juvenile Justice Boards, which will have psychologists and social experts on its panel, to assess if the crime was committed as a 'child' or as an 'adult'.
According to government data, as many as 45,258 cases were pending before 612 Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) in the country and 8,210 cases in 626 Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) till September 2014.

Delhi has maximum number of pending cases of 1,759 in the CWCs, followed by Rajasthan (1,657), Kerala (992), Tamil Nadu (818) and Chhattisgarh (663). While many states have district- wise CWCs and JJBs, Delhi has seven CWCs and two JJBs for its nine districts and Chhattisgarh 17 JJBs in 27 districts.
Similarly, with 12,831 cases Gujarat has the highest number of pendency in JJBs, followed by Rajasthan (8,647), Chhattisgarh (6,840), Tamil Nadu (5,066) and Odisha (4,735).
According to a parliamentary committee report, majority of child care institutions were marred by complaints of poor infrastructure and staff behaviour and high rates of abuse perpetrated by adults in child care homes and institutions.

"Child care institutions instead of giving proper care and protection have often left children vulnerable and resulted in their exploitation," the Committee noted.
The legislation aims at streamlining adoption procedures for orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children by making mandatory registration of all institutions engaged in providing child care.
The legislation proposes several rehabilitation and social integration measures for institutional and non- institutional children. It provides for sponsorship and foster care as completely new measures.