Satisfied With Report Denying Child Detention In J&K, Says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today said it was satisfied with a report from the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that no minor was "illegally detained" in the erstwhile state after its special status was scrapped earlier this year.

The three-judge bench comprising Justices NV Ramana, R Suhash Reddy and BR Gavai said this while hearing a petition filed by child rights activists Enakshi Ganguly and Shanta Sinha, who had alleged illegal detention of minors in Jammu and Kashmir.

The top court observed that the Juvenile Justice Committee appointed by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had visited all the prisons in the union territory but found no minor under detention. "Judges from the high court visited all the jails to examine them. We have to believe our own judges, not some report that appeared in a Washington newspaper," Justice Gavai told the petitioners.

The judge made this comment when senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for one of the petitioners, sought more time to respond to the committee's report.

Agreeing with his colleague, Justice Ramana said that the bench will not allow the report submitted by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to be reviewed. "We have perused the report carefully, and there is nothing on the illegal detention of children. If there is really something, we have taken care of it. They have personally inspected the matter in detail, and we have gone through each and every page of the report," he said.

The committee's report also contained a statement from Jammu and Kashmir's Additional Director General of Police, denying the allegations made in the petition. It claimed that while 144 juveniles were detained after the centre scrapped Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5, 142 were eventually released and the remaining two were sent to juvenile homes.

"What if they (the minors) were detained and released on the same day?" Justice Gavai asked. "Sometimes it is done in their own interest. You do not know what 13 and 14-year-olds can do. That is why the Indian Penal Code 376 (punishment for rape) has changed."