Pooja* was just 16 when she was accused of murdering her mother in Uttar Pradesh. Living with her alcoholic stepfather in a poor neighbourhood, she was arrested in 2018 and sent to an adult prison, even though Indian law requires minors to be produced before a Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) within 24 hours of arrest. Pooja remained in prison for six years before her case was transferred to a JJB in 2024, which confirmed she was a minor and ordered her release on time served.
Her case highlights systemic failures in India’s juvenile justice system, which aims to protect children and offer them a chance at rehabilitation. JJBs—quasi-judicial panels comprising a magistrate and two social workers—decide whether juveniles aged 16–18 accused of serious crimes should be tried as adults. They are also tasked with monitoring prisons and child care facilities, but oversight is often weak.
Data from the India Justice Report (2023) shows that over half the cases before 362 JJBs were pending, one in four lacked a full bench, and there is no central system tracking performance, resulting in poor accountability. Advocates say children from poor, dysfunctional families often face jail instead of rehabilitation, which revictimizes them.
Even when children are sent to observation or special homes, facilities are overcrowded, poorly resourced, and fail to provide meaningful education, vocational training, or counselling. Gender- and age-based segregation is inconsistently applied, and incidents of violence and abuse persist.
Despite these challenges, some NGOs, like Echo in Bengaluru, have successfully rehabilitated juveniles. Through counselling, behaviour modification, vocational training in areas like hotel management and farming, and education, children like Darshan*—once homeless and convicted of murder—have turned their lives around.
Fr Antony Sebastian of Echo emphasizes, “Every child deserves a second chance. As a society, we owe them at least that much.”
