Supreme Court Judge Madan B Lokur today advocated the need for a better infrastructure, timely release of funds and setting up vulnerable witness courts for the welfare of needy children in Madhya Pradesh.
Supreme Court Judge Madan B Lokur today advocated the need for a better infrastructure, timely release of funds and setting up vulnerable witness courts for the welfare of needy children in Madhya Pradesh.
"In the morning session, some valuable suggestions came from the participants. They have suggested that there is a problem of infrastructure in Juvenile Justice Boards, Child Welfare Committees... The infrastructure is not good," Justice Lokur said presiding over the state conference on Juvenile Justice and Capacity Building organised by UNICEF among others, here.
"There is a need to improve and strengthen infrastructure there," Supreme Court's Juvenile Justice Committee Chairman Justice Lokur added.
"There is also a need of manpower at these centres and institutes," he said.
"Posts need to be created (in these centres)," he suggested.
Looking at Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on the stage, he said "if you please look (into them), this will help tremendously."
Justice Lokur laying thrust on digital India concept, said, "I think we need to provide computer also to child care institutions... because unless we have the data about - number of children, what is their age, how they are? What food and clothes they are getting?
"Unless we are aware of this, we can't make progress.
Computer will generate huge data base and facilitate planning," he added.
"We also need to look at vulnerable witness courts.
You have a lot of cases of sexual offences against women, against children under the POCSO Act," Justice Lokur said.
"Can you imagine a person who has raped some lady is standing there as an accused and the lady victim is being cross examined in the presence of the accused person, who had may be two or three months ago raped this woman," he quipped.
"It is very, very difficult for such a lady to give evidence and it does not need skillful cross examiner...any lawyer can demolish the statement given by that lady," he added.
"The same thing can happen to a child. The child who is 8 years or 10 years old," he added.
"We recently had a case in the Supreme Court where a 10-year-old was raped and has become pregnant. Can you imagine the girl going to witness box and giving evidence and saying this is what happened," he quipped.
"So, we need to protect witnesses. We need to protect witnesses whether they are women - whether they are children.
We need to have these vulnerable witness courts. It is not a very difficult job again," the Judge added.
He said that the cost of setting up such a court comes to Rs 10 lakh.
Some states have opened these courts, he added.
"When we are dealing with children, we are not talking about punishment as deterrent. We are talking about punished as something restorative, to bring a child back to society, to rehabilitate the child in the society," he said.
"So for this, we need some trained counsellors and psychiatrists," he added.
In their speeches, Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice Hemant Gupta as special guest and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief guest underlined the need of educating and making children an ideal citizen of the country.
UNICEF state representative Michael Steven Juma in his address said, "protection of children is a critical indicator of the fulfillment of the rights of every children, which is fundamental requirement for realising other right.
"Proper implementation of the law is a precursor to safeguarding the rights of children," Juma added.
(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
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