Pooja* was 16 years old when she was accused of murdering her mother.

The teenager, who lived with her alcoholic stepfather in a poor neighbourhood in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested in 2018 and sent to jail.

Her lawyer told the police that Pooja was a minor. According to Indian law, she should have been produced before a Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) – a three-member bench that deals with matters concerning children in conflict with the law – within 24 hours of her arrest. But this was not done, Yamina Rizvi, a lawyer who took over Pooja’s case in 2024, told the BBC.

JJBs, which comprise of a principal magistrate and two social workers, decide if a child aged 16-18 should be tried as an adult in case of heinous crimes – a provision introduced in India’s Juvenile Justice law after the 2012 Delhi gang rape case.

But instead of appearing before a JJB, Pooja was lodged in a prison for six years while her case was heard in an adult court.

“JJBs are also required to make regular visits to prisons to check if minors have been lodged there. But not a single check was conducted while Pooja was in prison,” Rizvi alleges.

In 2024, Pooja’s case was finally transferred to a JJB, which found that she was indeed a minor at the time of the alleged crime. She was released on time served as the maximum sentence for a juvenile is three years and Pooja had already spent six years in prison.

“Pooja is one of thousands of children who have been let down by the juvenile justice system,” Rizvi says.

It has been nearly four decades since India passed its first comprehensive legislation to deal with children in conflict with the law – the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. It has been amended several times since then to strengthen its provisions.

The law aims to protect children and create opportunities for reform so that they can reintegrate into society and live meaningful lives.

But experts who work with children say that there is a long way to go before the system can properly implement the ideals the law preaches.

The strength of India’s juvenile justice system depends heavily on the health of its JJBs – quasi-judicial panels tasked with ensuring that a child’s rights are protected even as they face the legal consequences of their actions.

JJBs, established in 2000, don’t function in isolation but are the fulcrum of a network comprising child-friendly services including sensitised police units, legal aid services and rehabilitation centres.

But research shows that all is not well with these pivotal panels. For one, getting information about them is difficult as there is no single government portal that tracks and publicly shares data related to them.

Data shared in November by the India Justice Report (IJR) – a report created by civil society organisations to track the effectiveness of India’s justice system – shows that as of 2023, more than half the cases before 362 JJBs were pending hearing. The report doesn’t cover all of India’s JJBs as it is based on answers from states that responded to a set of questions sent by IJR through the Right to Information Act.

According to the report, India’s 745 districts have 707 JJBs.

The report also found that one in four JJBs lacked a full bench, even though the law mandates that every district should have at least one fully-staffed JJB.

Maja Daruwala, editor at IJR, says that the dearth of accurate data indicates poor oversight and creates a lack of accountability, which in turn seriously impacts the quality of care and rehabilitation opportunities juveniles receive.

Fr Antony Sebastian, founder of Echo, an NGO working for the welfare of juveniles, says that in the absence of JJBs, children lose not just the protection guaranteed to them by law, but also the chance to reform.

“These children largely come from poor backgrounds and dysfunctional families, and they grow up witnessing violence and scarcity. When the police beat them and dump them in jails, they’re revictimised all over again,” says Fr Sebastian, a former principal magistrate on two separate JJBs in Bengaluru city.

For minors not sent to jail, there isn’t much scope for reformation in child care institutions (facilities that house children in conflict with the law), says Deeksha Gujral, programme director at iProbono, which offers legal aid to vulnerable people.

JJBs can send children accused of crimes to observation homes, while those found to have committed an offence are placed in special homes. A separate facility, called a ‘place of safety’, houses children aged 16-18 years who are accused or found guilty of committing heinous offences.

JJBs are mandated to inspect these facilities every month to ensure they meet the standards prescribed by law. However, many children’s rights advocates say that regular checks seldom happen and even if they do, they’re conducted in a superficial manner.

Gujral, who has visited several observation and special homes in the course of her work, says that many of them are overcrowded, and lack counsellors or meaningful recreational, educational and vocational facilities. Additionally, while there are separate facilities for boys and girls, the mandated age-based segregation within these facilities is not always adhered to.

“All the children do is eat, sleep and watch TV. In places like Delhi, where there already exists a strong gang and drug culture, these power dynamics are replicated within the residential facilities. Younger, less-experienced children look to older boys with connections to gangs outside the facility for protection,” Gujral says, adding that incidents of violence and sexual abuse are also not uncommon.

The BBC has sent a list of questions to the federal ministry of women and child development, which oversees the juvenile justice system, but has not received a response.

Rizvi says that authorities in many facilities are also jaded.

“They believe that these children are beyond help, and nothing they do will change them,” she says, adding that she has seen this belief in many lawyers who represent children too.

Fr Sebastian says that apathy takes root when there’s a lack of understanding about the child’s reality and the spirit of the law.

He says that Echo, which runs a special home, has seen success stories where children found guilty of serious offences like murder and rape have been able to turn around their lives.

He attributes this to the focus Echo places on running vocational training programmes like dairy and poultry farming, and hotel management, as well as offering regular counselling sessions.

Darshan* was brought to Echo after he was found guilty of murdering his friend during a fight about a cricket match. Before that, he lived on the streets.

“Counselling sessions at Echo helped Darshan confront what he had done, but also examine why he had done it,” Fr Sebastian says.

He was then enrolled in a behaviour modification programme while he completed his education through distance learning. Later, he trained in hotel management and is working with a well-known hotel.

“Every child deserves a second chance,” Fr Sebastian says. “As a society, we owe them at least that much.”

*Names have been changed as Indian law prohibits the disclosure of a juvenile offender’s identity.