Juvenile, a person who is under age(below 18 yrs. in India)
The age 18 yrs. had been considered by our learned legislatures as an age which is a must be acquired by a person to be held criminal for some criminal act. Our learned legislatures, in yesteryears when there was no easy access to the world of information, would have considered that an ordinary child could not have acquired the knowledge of the consequences of his or her acts. So instead of holding them criminal they had considered the below 18 juveniles as delinquents on doing some criminal act. And instead of penalizing them, a reformatory step used to be taken. All this to have a progressive and productive society.
Now a days the theory seems to me an obsolete one. Now a days, due to information disbursement at such a large scale by social media, tele media, internet and other means , these theory have become irrelevant. the scenario has completely changed, as now a days information are just a click away. Consequently, the maturity age to acquire the knowledge of the act committed has to be done not only on biological basis, rather other parameters like background of the juvenile, motive of the committing crime by juvenile, frequency of committing crime, and tendency of reforming oneself, should also be taken into consideration, before deciding the question of juvenile or adult of someone.
The person below 18 yrs is not absolutely lacking knowledge of the consequences of criminal acts, rather he or she is ready to take advantage of his below 18 yrs age and feel themselves as privileged ones, and knowingly and habitually do crime. Is this way the objective of setting the age of majority be 18yrs being achieved?
Maturity to acquire knowledge of committing any offence should be considered not only on the basis of the biological age, rather other parameters all should be given due consideration in setting the age of juvenile and there should be different points for different parameters. And if the sum total of all the parameters determines the maturity level of the juvenile as immature then only he or she should be treated as juvenile, and not otherwise.
These days there is a dire need to change the law on juveniles? Our legislatures should take serious steps on this issue and bring out some effective and consonant amendments in every aspect of the related laws.
The age 18 yrs. had been considered by our learned legislatures as an age which is a must be acquired by a person to be held criminal for some criminal act. Our learned legislatures, in yesteryears when there was no easy access to the world of information, would have considered that an ordinary child could not have acquired the knowledge of the consequences of his or her acts. So instead of holding them criminal they had considered the below 18 juveniles as delinquents on doing some criminal act. And instead of penalizing them, a reformatory step used to be taken. All this to have a progressive and productive society.
Now a days the theory seems to me an obsolete one. Now a days, due to information disbursement at such a large scale by social media, tele media, internet and other means , these theory have become irrelevant. the scenario has completely changed, as now a days information are just a click away. Consequently, the maturity age to acquire the knowledge of the act committed has to be done not only on biological basis, rather other parameters like background of the juvenile, motive of the committing crime by juvenile, frequency of committing crime, and tendency of reforming oneself, should also be taken into consideration, before deciding the question of juvenile or adult of someone.
The person below 18 yrs is not absolutely lacking knowledge of the consequences of criminal acts, rather he or she is ready to take advantage of his below 18 yrs age and feel themselves as privileged ones, and knowingly and habitually do crime. Is this way the objective of setting the age of majority be 18yrs being achieved?
Maturity to acquire knowledge of committing any offence should be considered not only on the basis of the biological age, rather other parameters all should be given due consideration in setting the age of juvenile and there should be different points for different parameters. And if the sum total of all the parameters determines the maturity level of the juvenile as immature then only he or she should be treated as juvenile, and not otherwise.
These days there is a dire need to change the law on juveniles? Our legislatures should take serious steps on this issue and bring out some effective and consonant amendments in every aspect of the related laws.
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