A juvenile court on Monday ruled that a suspect in the fatal gang-rape of a young woman in New Delhi last month was a juvenile at the time of the attack, and may get off with a light sentence may have drawn sharp criticisms from all quarters, but child rights activists and defence counselors argue that the changing the law is not the answer. Priyanka reports.
The family of the Delhi gang-rape victim on Monday termed the Juvenile Justice Board's decision of ruling the sixth accused in the case as minor as unfortunate and said that they would challenge it in court. "The family would consult legal experts and challenge the matter in the relevant court," the brother of the girl told PTI over the phone from Delhi.
The sixth accused in the Delhi gang-rape case has been declared as a juvenile. The Juvenile Justice Board, which was looking into the issue, stated that there is no doubt that the accused rapist's date of birth was June 4, 1995, as per his school records.
If the Centre needs any justification to amend the Juvenile Justice Act and change the age of juvenile offenders to 18 years from the current 16 years, the statistics by the National Crime Records Bureau about sex crimes should be able to provide it.
A woman advocate has filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Delhi high court for its direction to declare as 'ultra vires' some provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act saying that the recent incidents show it is the society which 'needs care and protection', instead of the offenders above the 16 years of age.
Parents of the 11-month-old baby girl, who was sent on a solo parasailing trip to a height of about 40 feet at a beach in Kannur, Kerala, have landed in trouble along with the organisers as police registered a case against them under the Juvenile Justice Act.
The juvenile, who is a co-accused in the brutal gangrape of the 23-year-old woman in New Delhi can only be sentenced for a maximum of three years. Vicky Nanjappa speaks with eminent lawyers and judges who agree that India's Juvenile Justice Act needs to be tougher
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said it is 'very very serious' if people were unable to approach the high court.
"You are sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal of Code and six months of imprisonment under section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act. Both sentences shall run concurrently," said Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Virender Bhat.
A complaint on disclosure of the identity of the girl student who was forced to drink her own urine by a school warden in Santiniketan has been made by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to the Press Council of India and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
A group of people had lynched 40-year-old Alimuddin Ansari in Bazaar Tand locality of Ramgarh town on June 29, 2017, on the suspicion that he was carrying beef in his car.
The states need to identify the children in distress through outreach and surveys and prepare a database with a profile of each child, along with the details of their specific needs and requirements, and ensure that the data is uploaded on the Track Child portal.
Four youths accused of kidnapping and killing teenager Adnan Patrawala in Mumbai in 2007 were on Monday acquitted by a local court on account of lack of evidence, a verdict dubbed by the victim's family as "shocking".
A team of prison officials performed the dummy execution on Sunday. The officials recorded the weights of the convicts and the prepared the dummies accordingly with sacks filled with debris and stones, a senior jail official said. The execution will take place on in Jail No 3, he said, adding that the UP Prison authority has confirmed that Pawan Jallad from Meerut will be sent to hang the four convicts.
Check out the timeline in the Delhi gang rape case which shocked the nation's conscience.
A curative petition is the last legal remedy available to a convict. In his plea, Vinay Sharma has said his young age has been erroneously rejected as a mitigating circumstance. The review pleas of all the convicts have been rejected by the SC and they're set to be hanged on January 22.
The Supreme Court today commenced the final hearing on the pleas seeking fresh interpretation of the term 'juvenile' in the statute and leaving it to the criminal court, instead of the Juvenile Justice Board, to determine the juvenility of an offender in heinous crimes.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday underscored the need to achieve parity between the state's Juvenile Justice Act and the National Act.
The eye of the debate has been focused too tightly on the quantum of punishment rather than the current approach, both to the juvenile, and also, for making him/her accountable, says Puja Marwaha
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan is expected to deliver its judgment on the pleas of Mukesh, 29, Pawan Gupta, 22, and Vinay Sharma, 23.
The hectic legal proceedings in the Danish woman gangrape case on Thursday took the prosecution by surprise, as the victim who supported the case in the trial court turned hostile in the Juvenile Justice Board where she failed to identify the three minor offenders.
"When the judgement was being delivered by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), presided over by Principal Magistrate Geetanjali Goel, the victim's younger brother tried to attack the minor," the sources at the Board said.
Changes in the draft essentially mean that the year of the Motor Vehicles Bill 2016 will change to 2019 besides other such technical amendments. But the contents of the bill remain the same.
A 23-year-old paramedic student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in south Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road.
Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha sentenced Thakur to life imprisonment for remainder of his natural life.
Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Sunday favoured treating juveniles accused of heinous crimes like rape on par with adult offenders.
TV actress Urvashi Dhanorkar was arrested in Mumbai on Saturday for physically abusing her 10-year-old maid.
A parliamentary committee on Wednesday rejected the government's proposal to try as adults juveniles between 16 and 18 years involved in heinous cases such as rape, saying the move is "in conflict with law" and should be "reviewed".
The Centre and the Delhi government challenged the trial court's January 31 order staying 'till further orders' the execution of all the four convicts in the case. The parents of the victim urged the court to expeditiously decide the Centre's plea and were assured by the judge that the order would be passed at the earliest.
The CBI has given a clean chit to the arrested bus conductor in connection with the case.
The CBI has also started questioning the school bus conductor, regional head of the school group and HR head.
The killing was a grim reminder of the murder of a seven-year-old student in Gurgaon last year.
With the brewing furore over the incident of an IG's minor son driving an official police vehicle, a court in Thrissur has ordered a case to be registered in the matter.
The Delhi police on Thursday pleaded with a court to cancel the bail given by a juvenile justice board to a teenager who had allegedly run over a 32-year-old man with his father's Mercedes leading to his death, saying the relief was granted wrongly.
The death row convicts moved a Delhi court with a plea to adjourn the execution 'sine die' saying they are yet to avail their remaining legal remedies.
Jail officials said that after the death warrants were issued, the convicts were asked when they would like to meet their respective families for the last time, but none of them has responded yet. They are scheduled to be hanged on February 1.
The police claim they have 'clinching evidence' that he was behind the wheels of a Merecedes Benz that ran over 11 persons sleeping on a footpath in Chennai on December 13, killing two of them and injuring the rest.
A case has been registered against the Italy-born Odissi dancer and Padma Shri awardee Ileana Citaristi for allegedly misbehaving with a student at the dance school run by her at Bindu Sagar area.
Parents of the December 16 gang rape victim participated in a candlelight march at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi demanding justice for their daughter.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances