The current legal framework is the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, an Act of Parliament that defines a "child" as any person below the age of 18 years. Its origin can be traced back to the Apprentices Act of 1850, which first addressed children in conflict with the law. The first uniform national law was the Juvenile Justice Act of 1986, enacted on October 2, 1987, to replace disparate state-level Children Acts and shift the focus from a punitive approach to one of rehabilitation and reintegration. This move was partly driven by the need to align with the 1959 United Nations declaration of the child.
The Act works by creating two distinct categories: Children in Conflict with Law (CICL) and Children in Need of Care and Protection (CNCP). For CICL, the Act establishes the Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB), and for CNCP, it mandates the creation of Child Welfare Committees (CWC) in every district. A key mechanism is the principle that bail is the norm for a child. The Act connects directly to international law, as its predecessor, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, was introduced in compliance with the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
The 2015 Act superseded the 2000 Act and introduced a significant change: it allows children aged 16 to 18 years to be tried as adults for heinous crimes after a preliminary assessment by the JJB. This provision was a major amendment, but the core principle of prioritizing rehabilitation and the uniform definition of a child as under 18 years remained consistent from the 2000 Act. The Act classifies offenses under the Indian Penal Code as petty, serious, or heinous to determine the course of action.