They spent two months at the Sewa Kutir observation home, after which they were released on bail. That was four months ago. There have been “five or six” hearings since then. Why is their case taking so long? “I don’t know,” says one, “we just want to be back in school; we’ll never make such a mistake again.” What does the judge have to say? “She doesn’t talk to us. Our lawyer does all the talking.”
Inside the ‘courtroom’, in clear violation of the recommendations of the Juvenile Justice Act that says that “the Board shall not sit on a raised platform and the sitting arrangement shall be uniform”, the judges sit perched on a forbidding platform surrounded by a small army of stenographers and orderlies. The juveniles, their parents and witnesses have to stand — no effort is made to put them at ease.
Juveniles are also afterthoughts in the observation home. The only doctor at a complex responsible for a large number of children between the ages of 12 and 18 was suspended recently and has not been replaced. Efforts at rehabilitation are in the form of casual classes and vocational training. These do engage the children, but “what they really need is someone to talk to, someone to motivate them,” says Raj Sharma, a former juvenile offender, who, after having served time at the special home, spent a year teaching children to paint at the Delhi government’s Alipur shelter. “Fifteen minutes every couple of days with a child is just not enough.” This is the time when the children need support, and some of them are willing to talk, says Sharma. “They know that they won’t get support once they’re out.”
To compound matters, even probationary services, which on paper form the backbone of the juvenile justice system, are largely absent. More than 90 percent of the children who come before the court are released on ‘bail’ at the conclusion of their trials. They’re expected to report to the court regularly, and probation officers of the Delhi government are supposed to keep track of them.
Bizarrely, there are seven officers in all of Delhi tasked with this responsibility. Their role, according to Bharti Ali, who works for Haq, an NGO concerned with child’s rights issues, never goes beyond preparing a single report filed at the time of trial, detailing the social circumstances of the child. “They don’t even get a transport allowance,” she says, “so they can hardly be expected to travel to distant corners of the city for follow-up visits.”
In effect, juveniles are sent back after an intervention that is at best minimal into the very circumstances that brought them into the system.
Back in Trilokpuri, the juvenile is evasive about his past. He’s the only one of four siblings — three brothers and one sister — who has never been to school. Nor has he ever worked. After his father died 10 years ago, his life slid out of control. “I did these,” he says pointing to the scars on his arm, “to myself at the time.”
There are also three long, deep cuts behind his neck, incurred, he says, “during a fight at home”. He was first arrested for a fight that broke out when he was out distributing cards for a cousin’s wedding. The second time around, he says, he “drank beer” and was joyriding on a friend’s motorcycle when they injured a man.
