What are you doing to implement juvenile justice act, asks court

NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Friday pulled up the government for not doing anything to co-ordinate with the state governments and union territories for implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Child) Act, 2000.

“We had indicated to the central government to co-ordinate with the states and union territories for implementation of the Act. Unfortunately till date there is no channel to co-ordinate with the states,” the apex court bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice H.L. Gokhale said.

Meanwhile, the court asked the “progressive states” of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Delhi to file a status report on implementation of the various requirements of the Act.

“Let us go a little deeply and ask the progressive states which are pro-poor as to what they have done to implement the Act,” Justice Raveendran said.

The court said the concerned officials of these four states who could take a decision would be present in the court.

Reiterating that nothing was being done, the court said there was no infrastructure to implement the various provision of the Act.

When the counsel for the government, Wasim Ahmed Qadri told the court that the centre has already issued the guidelines for the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act, the court said that this was a new law and mere issuance of guidelines would not suffice.

When the court was told that another bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma too was hearing the matter relating to this juvenile law, Justice Raveendran observed, “Now we have come to a situation where not just one but two courts are monitoring implementation of the Act.”

“You come to us saying that the matter was being monitored by the other court (headed by Justice Bhandari) and then you go there and say that the matter was being monitored by us” and in the process you do nothing, observed Justice Raveendran.

When the counsel for West Bengal sought to tell the court that the state government has already complied with the provisions of the Act, the court asked him to tell what all the state government had done.

“Let us know what are the things that the state government was required to do under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Child) Act, 2000. You have done nothing,” observed the court.

When the senior counsel Colin Gonsalves pleaded that the court should issue fresh directions, the court said that by that we would be able to have compliance of the Act on paper only. “If you insist then they will show some paper compliance,” Justice Raveendran said.

The court said that all the states and UTs would file fresh status report on what steps they have taken for implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Child) Act, 2000. Then Justice Raveendran added “This is adding to the paper work.”