Supreme Court judge justice BV Nagarathna on Saturday said the question of treating a child in conflict with law as an adult was one of the “most delicate fault lines” in India’s criminal justice system.
The two-day event is being held in New Delhi to review implementation challenges and identify priorities for strengthening child protection and juvenile justice. The event is organised by the apex court’s Juvenile Justice Committee in association with UNICEF. Justice Nagarathna was speaking at the Supreme Court’s ‘National Consultation on Ten Years of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015.
The Supreme Court judge, however, refrained from calling for any change in legislation, saying instead that the law was “largely clear on paper”. The real challenge lay in its implementation, she said.
It classified offences as “petty, serious and heinous, so the offence now shapes the response. She asked whether every state followed the same approach. She questioned whether boards had their full strength and Child Welfare Committees had adequate support. She also asked whether legal aid meant something in practice or existed only on paper, whether Social Investigation Reports arrived on time, whether each care plan was suited to the child, and whether children with disabilities could access the system on equal terms. She further asked whether foster care and adoption moved with urgency when a child could not return to their family.
The judge also questioned whether Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) carried out the preliminary assessment of a child’s mental and physical capacity, mandated under Section 15 of the Act, with “consistency, expertise and sensitivity. Justice Nagarathna also cited the India Justice Report from November 2025, which showed that, as of October 2023, 55% of cases before JJBs across 18 states and two Union Territories were pending. More than 55,000 children were awaiting decisions, while 111 of the 470 responding boards were functioning without their full complement of a principal magistrate and two social worker members.
It kept rehabilitation, reintegration, family-based care and the child’s best interests at its centre, Justice Nagarathna said. A Juvenile Justice Board, she said, “is not intended to be a miniature criminal court.
