Beastly juvenile rhyme of December 16 rape convict

Also read: Why rule of law, not anarchy, won in Nirbhaya rape case

The rejection of the petition filed by Subramanian Swamy to prevent the release of the juvenile involved in the December 16 gangrape is proof that the rule of law prevails in India. The operative part of the judgment clearly directs that the Juvenile Justice Board shall pass appropriate order in accordance with the Act and the rules after interacting with the child, his parents or guardians as well as the concerned officials of the department of women and child development. There is nothing in the judgment to claim that the child be necessarily kept under observation for two years.

It is not unexpected that the victim's parents are disappointed as they have been demanding death penalty for the child contrary to the provisions of law. While it is the right of the victims to demand the most severe punishment, it is not necessary that this is just and proper. The rule of law has been established to prevent lynching of offenders by victims.

In case of children, reformation without punishment is based on centuries of experience of people working with them. Now we have a good scientific basis for promoting this approach. Since the first jail committee set up in 1834, it was recognised that jails were not good for children. 100 years later, in 1960, Indian Parliament recognised that children must not be jailed under any circumstance. It became the universal law for all children younger the 18 in 2000. Despite no provision for punishing children for any offence, there has been no spurt in juvenile crime contrary to what the media will make us believe. The share of juvenile crime rose from 0.9 per cent in 2001 to 1.2 per cent in 2014. The actual number of juveniles arrested has risen by 17,018, as has the number of children - from 40 crore in 2001 to close to 44 crore in 2014. With an additional four crore children under the age of 18 years, the additional number of 17,000 or so children does not call for panic. Read more here.

Also read: How releasing juvenile rapist shames Jyoti Singh

She was young and full of dreams and hope. But she had an enormously brutal death. And the youngest among her rapists will now walk free, after just three years. So is that fair? Should we have realised this day would come earlier and not left our regrets till the last minute?

But then, of course, we also knew we had to follow the law, and none of us can make him receive retrospective punishment . There is after all, a court judgement.

An outpouring of recriminations reveal that, somehow,  this terrible case seems to have gone the wrong way, once more. Jyoti's parents feel, once more, that justice has not been done.

And as the day of his release comes closer perhaps more and more of us realise that an exception should have been made in this case. Not because we need retribution, an eye for an eye, a death for a death, but because an almost-18-year old is an almost-18-year-old. The fact that he was old enough to rape meant that he was an adult. He was neither thinking like a child nor behaving like one. There was no innocence, no accident in his act. Read more here.