Agencies/New Delhi

Lawmakers yesterday passed a bill allowing harsher punishments for juveniles aged 16-18 after an outcry over the release of a young rapist who served three years in a detention facility for his part in a notorious gang-rape in 2012.
“I think the ayes have it, the ayes have it, the ayes have it. The bill has been passed,” P J Kurien, deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, said after a day-long debate on the bill.
The Lok Sabha or lower house of parliament had in May passed the bill to reform the 2000 Juvenile Justice Act that fixed the minimum age for trial as an adult at 18. It now needs only rubber-stamping by the president.
The release two days ago of the youngest convict in the case of the fatal gang-rape of physiotherapy student Jyoti Singh in December 2012 triggered widespread calls for amendments to the existing law.
The changes to the law will allow minors aged 16-18 to be sentenced to at least seven years in young offenders’ institutions if convicted of “heinous crimes” including rape and murder.
However, they will not face the death penalty.
Members of the communist parties walked out of the Rajya Sabha before the bill was passed, demanding that it be sent to a select committee of the house.
Asha Devi and Badrinath, parents of the 23-year-old student were present in the visitors’ gallery as the Rajya Sabha took up the bill for discussion.
“#JuvenileJusticeBill attempts to bring balance between rights of the child and need to deter heinous juvenile crimes, esp. against women,” Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi posted on Twitter soon after the bill was cleared.
Giving details of the the bill Gandhi said ‘borstals’ - a custodial institution for young offenders - would be set up under the proposed law to house juveniles accused of heinous crimes.
She said juvenile crime was being encouraged by the existing law.
“Juveniles’ involvement in crime is increasing the fastest. Children walk into police stations and say we have murdered... send us to a juvenile home,” she said.
Congress Party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said juvenile convicts should not be kept in jail with “hardened criminals” and there should be a separate place for them.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, meanwhile, said the government had listed the bill several times in the monsoon as well as the winter sessions but it could not be taken up.
“This law will not be applicable in retrospective,” he said, which means it will not be applicable on the rape convict who has already been freed.
Members from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam also questioned the hurry in passing the bill, suggesting that it may be sent to a select committee.
The mother of the victim, who met Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in the morning, said if the bill had been passed earlier, the juvenile convict would not have walked free.
“He would not have been released if this bill had been passed six months ago. Though it has been delayed, we want this bill to be passed in parliament at the earliest,” Asha Devi told reporters.