New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has turned down the plea to bring down legal age of juvenility in crime from 18 to 16 years. The age of juvenility would remain 18 even in serious crimes like rape and murder.
The debate on the issue of juveniles was raked after the brutal gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student. The girl was gang-raped and inhumanly assaulted by six men including a minor. According to police, the other accused defined minors behavior as most brutal. The police maintained this description even in their charge-sheet. The juvenile was only few months short of adulthood when he committed the crime.
According to experts, while the other accused face a death sentence, the maximum quantum of punishment that could be handed as per juvenile law to the minor can be 3 years imprisonment in a correction home.
