August 20th, Wednesday:
Despite the Court’s instructions, how the police are lodging FIR against minors for complaints with provisions of sentencing less than seven years under the Juvenile act, Kolkata HC summoned a report from the state DG of police.
On Tuesday, Examples of such cases were presented in front of the bench of Justice Sujay Paul. Where it was also mentioned, FIRs have been lodged against minors even if they are taken into custody ignoring the instructions of the High Court and the Guidelines mentioned in Juvenile Justice Act.
Plaintiff lawyer Advocate Debashish Banerjee mentioned that even after the Division bench of this court instructed not to lodge FIRs for petty offences and not to arrest minors under suspicion this kind of incident is still taking place. Regarding this, the Division Bench of Justice Paul has instructed the State DG of police to submit a report with proper explanation.
In a similar incident, During the covid Lockdown a complaint was raised for beating a minor to death after taking a child into police custody for theft in Mollarpore of Birbhum. After long court proceedings the bench of Justice T.S. Shivagnanam, current Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court ordered a bunch of instructions for the police.
The police were instructed to strictly obey the 2017 Juvenile Justice Act. Under which there is no provision for arresting, keeping in custody, lodging an FIR against a minor for offences that can sentence them for less than 7 years. Despite it all being specifically mentioned in the act the police have been committing all those illegal activities.
