30% child courts in India limp along sans full staff
Panels for child welfare don't exist in 279 districts
Over a year after the Supreme Court directed for a Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to be formed in every district to effectively deal with cases of juveniles in conflict with the law, the order is yet to be implemented in every state. About 48 districts don't have a single JJB. Of the 675 districts that have JJBs, 166 lack the staff to function at full capacity. The backlog adds to piling up of legal cases. Though all of Maharashtra's 36 districts have JJBs, only 19 function at full strength.The fact came to light after the Ministry of Women and Child Development filed a status report in the top court as per orders passed on February 9, 2018. As of July 31, 2019, all districts in each state and union territory, by and large, had a JJB. The report pointed the states where the SC order is yet to be a reality — Madhya Pradesh (43 out of 51), Telangana (10 out of 33), West Bengal (19 out of 23), Gujarat (29 out of 33), Arunachal Pradesh (21 out of 25), Delhi (6 out of 10), and Haryana (21 out of 22).As per Section 4(1) of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, it is mandatory for each district to have one or more JJBs. Similarly, Section 27(1) requires every state to constitute at least one Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in each district. But the Centre found that 43 districts lack even a CWC and 279 don't have adequate staff.