SC seeks new report on minors’ detention

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court sought a fresh report from the Juvenile Justice Committee of Jammu and Kashmir High Court on allegations of illegal detention of juveniles after August 5, when Indian parliament passes laws and resolutions to bifurcate the region into two union territories, and also scrap provisions giving the erstwhile state special status.

A three-judge bench led by Justice NV Ramana asked the panel to conduct a fresh exercise to verify the allegations after it felt that the earlier report was not in conformity with the directions court had passed. Though the bench did not fix any deadline for receiving the report, it asked the panel to undertake and complete the exercise “as expeditiously as possible.”

The bench was hearing a PIL filed by a child-rights activist Enakshi Ganguly, complaining against the illegal detention of juveniles, in violation of the juvenile justice law and principles governing human rights. The bench fixed December 3 to hear the case again. Submitted on October 1, the committee’s first report was merely a record of the data it received from the local police and juvenile justice homes, according to which 144 juveniles were detained in J&K after August 5.

“The state machinery has been constantly upholding the rule of law and not a single juvenile in conflict with law has been illegally detained…” the committee stated in its earlier report pursuant to an earlier direction given by the top court on September 20.

During the hearing, the bench agreed with Ganguly’s lawyer, senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi that the panel had merely submitted to the court a report prepared by the state police without any independent inquiry. Ahmadi claimed preventive detention is barred under both the CRPC and the J&K Public Safety Act, yet the juveniles were detained by the police.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s argument that the report by a panel of sitting HC judges cannot be challenged by way of an appeal was brushed aside by the

bench. Mehta said the petitioners made a false statement that the J&K HC was not functioning and pleaded the matter to be referred to the HC itself.