By Abhinandan Adhikari

Article 14, an online news portal reported that Even though the Supreme Court has called the detention of children “a flagrant violation of the law”—and various court judgments have emphasised the nature of these violations, right-to-information data on this aspect reveals that more than 800 children in conflict with the law were detained in jails within the national capital’s Tihar jail system over the preceding five years. The real number of children detained nationwide is estimated to be in the thousands, indicating endemic violations of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which clearly says no child “in conflict with the law” can be held in a police lock-up or jail. Concerned by such egregious violations of the law by its keepers, in January 2024, the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) launched a nationwide campaign to identify children in prisons and give them legal assistance, a recognition that legal preventive measures had failed to keep children out of jail.

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