Juveniles in adult jails: HC tells govt to appoint welfare officers

“As per the provisions of jail manual,Delhi jails shall have a welfare officer in addition to other officers and it was further noted that in Delhi jails,number of officers are inadequate with posts lying vacant. The report of the Member Secretary,Delhi Legal Services Authority notes that there are 11 jails,whereas the number of welfare officers is only five. Hence the Department of Woman and Child Welfare,Govt. of NCT,Delhi has yet to provide six more welfare officers in the jail,” the High court bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath said.

The court,in its order,also noted that the social workers,which were to be appointed by the Department of Woman and Child Development of the Delhi Government to work with the Special Juvenile Police Units,as well as the jail visitors panel created by the NCPCR to monitor the issue of juveniles being put into jails,had stopped coming to work since their salaries had not been paid.

The Delhi High Court has been monitoring the issue since 2011 after taking suo motu cognisance of the issue of underage offenders being put into the jails meant for adult prisoners. The DLSA is assisting the court in monitoring the issue,and the Member Secretary of the DLSA had been directed to file a report on the compliance of orders issued by the court in May last year regarding the implementation of the various rules under the Delhi Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules,2009.

The DLSA in its report had informed the court that though the JJ Rules state that two social workers each had to be appointed to work with the Special Juvenile Police unit for each of the 13 districts in the capital,only 13 had been appointed by the government,of which eight stopped working as their salaries had not been paid.