New Delhi, Jan. 25 -- The Private Member's Bill introduced in the Parliament in December 2025 seeking to further reduce the age of children accused of heinous offences (with punishment more than 7 years) from 16 years to 14 years to be treated as adults, is premised on a widely held but deeply flawed assumption, that crimes by children are rising alarmingly and that the juvenile justice system is overly lenient. The available facts, legal history, and constitutional reasoning decisively rebut this assumption.
As against the common belief that juvenile crimes are attaining alarming proportions in the country, the latest figures from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) present a very different picture. There is only a marginal increase ...