Maneka Gandhi said she hoped the states will adopt the draft rules under the Juvenile Justice Act.
Highlights
- If approved the rules will apply to cases since January
- Juvenile Justice Board to decide which cases to try under laws for adults
- Police say they may file Delhi Mercedes hit-and-run case under new rules
The government has made public the "child-oriented" draft rules under the Juvenile Justice Act, which if adopted, would come into retrospective effect from January. The rules come a day before the Delhi Police file a charge-sheet in the Mercedes hit-and-run case and NDTV has learnt that the police will ask for the accused to be tried as an adult.
The accused, a few days short of 18, was allegedly driving the car and hit a man, who died.
The draft bill has been put up on the ministry of Women and Child Development website for public consultation. "It will be in retrospect for all cases since January, but we want to emphasise that it is child-oriented so children will not have to go to jail,'' said Union minister Maneka Gandhi.
The new rules, however, say children between the age of 16 and 18 years who are accused of heinous crimes can be tried as adults under IPC and CrPC. The decision rests with the Juvenile Justice Board, but states may amend that aspect.
To make sure there is no dispute about age, the new rules say every hospital should have a testing centre, so the age of every accused can be determined within 30 days.
The Juvenile Justice Act came into force in January, following a huge uproar about the increasing number of crimes committed by children under the age of 18.
Among them were two cases that fuelled much of the public anger - the Delhi gang-rape case of December 2012 and the Aashina rape in Mumbai that took place soon after. In both cases, boys under the age of 18 were among the accused, who, could get a maximum of three years' detention at correctional homes.
The Mercedes hit-and-run case in Delhi, in which a 32 year-old marketing executive had died, had evoked similar outrage. The car was being driven ta a speed of more than 80 km per hour, a student out to celebrate with his friends after the board exams was allegedly behind the wheels.
"He was just short of 18 when he hit and killed Siddharth Sharma,'' said a police source, "We will ask that he is tried for culpable homicide under IPC''.