THE NATIONAL Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on Thursday issued guildelines for the first time for conducting “preliminary assessment’’ to determine whether a child should be treated as a minor or not in criminal cases which come under the “heinous” offences category of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. “The main aim of the guidelines is to determine whether the accused should be treated as a minor or not during the trial,’’ said NCPCR Chairperson Priyank Kanoongo. Although the child is defined in the JJ Act, 2015 as a person who has not completed 18 years of age, there is a specific provision under which initiation of an inquiry into a heinous crime has been differentiated based on age of the child. According to Section 15(1) of the Act, in case of a heinous offence alleged to have been committed by a child “who has completed or is above” the age of 16, the Juvenile Justice Board “shall conduct a preliminary assessment with regard to his mental and physical capacity to commit such offence, ability to understand the consequences of the offence and the circumstances in which he allegedly committed the offence”. The Board may then pass an order that there is a need for trial of the child as an adult. The sole aim of preliminary assessment is to determine whether the child in the age of 16-18 years should be tried as an adult in case of heinous offence. There are two essential conditions that call for preliminary assessment. First, the offence is in the category of “heinous” as defined in the Act. Second, the child who has allegedly committed the crime is in the age group of 16-18 years. “This should not be considered an inquiry into the offence or a prelude to the trial by Children’s Court or JJB. Also, while making the preliminary assessment, the child shall be presumed to be innocent unless proven otherwise,’’ according to the NCPCR guidelines. To determine the offender's age, the JJ Board would either obtain the date of birth certificate from the school, or the matriculation or equivalent certificate from the concerned examination Board in the absence of the birth certificate given by a civic body. Only in cases where neither of the two are available, “age shall be determined by an ossification test or any other latest medical age determination test” conducted on the orders of the JJ Board, say the guidelines. The guidelines come two years after the JJ Act, 2015 was amended to include “serious’’ offences as a separate category apart from the existing categories of “heinous” offences and “petty” offences. The amendment, passed in 2021 by Parliament, defines three categories of criminal cases involving children in conflict with law. They “heinous offences”, which includes crimes for which the minimum punishment is imprisonment for seven years or more; “petty offences”, which includes crimes for which the maximum punishment is imprisonment up to three years; and “serious offences”, which includes crimes for which the punishment is a minimum imprisonment for a term more than three years and not exceeding seven years.
