Give details of child-friendly courts, juvenile boards: Patna high court

PATNA: The Patna high court on Tuesday directed the state government to file a detailed counter affidavit within three weeks on the status of child-friendly courts and vulnerable witness courts in the state.
The court also directed state government to give the number of juvenile justice boards (JJB) functioning in state along with details of their administrative members.
There must be one child-friendly court, a vulnerable witness court and a three-member JJB in each district.According to law, a juvenile board consists of one judicial and two administrative members.
The division bench of Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Anjana Mishra had turned into a PIL a letter of secretary general of the Supreme Court written to registrar general of all high courts regarding the effective implementation of Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act, 2015 to meaningfully address roadblocks, if any, after hearing government authorities.
The letter was written on February 19 last year in the backdrop of apex court observations for compliance by high courts in the Sampurna Behura case. The observations were given on February 9 last year.
During Tuesday’s hearing, counsel Dinu Kumar, who is also the amicus curiae in the case, submitted that seven districts in the state did not have juvenile justice board yet.
Kumar also submitted that the state government had issued a notification on March 26 last year about the number of juvenile boards and their members, but had not clarified the field of expertise of the members.
“There must be two administrative members, but there is only one at several places,” he submitted. The fact had come up before the court through a counter affidavit submitted by the social welfare department on May 3 last year.
Government counsel Prabhu Narayan Sharma submitted that the state government was working on the Supreme Court directive and an updated progress made till now would be brought on record before the court through a counter affidavit on the next date of hearing.