The Gazetteers Department

IN MAHARASHTRA STATE THERE ARE THREE PIECES OF SOCIAL LEGISLATION the aim of which is to protect children and to prevent juveniles, adolescents and young adults from becoming habitual criminals, and they are:-(1) the Bombay Children Act (LXXI of 1948); (2) the Bombay Borstal Schools Act (XVIII of 1929); and (3) the Bombay Probation of Offenders Act (XIX of 1939). While the Children Act deals with children below 16 years of age, the Borstal Schools Act is applied to adolescents between 16 and 21, and the Probation of Offenders Act provides for offenders of any age, especially those between 21 and 25 and those who have not committed offences punishable with death or transportation for life. In addition, there is the Bombay Habitual Offenders Restriction Act (LI of 1947). This Act was passed with a view to making provision for restricting the movements of habitual offenders, for requiring them to report themselves, and for placing them in settlements.

Children Act.

The Bombay Children Act consolidates all previous laws relating to the custody, protection, treatment and rehabilitation of children and youthful offenders and also for the trial of youthful offenders. It gives protection to four principal classes of children, viz., (1) those who are neglected, destitute or living in immoral surroundings and those in moral danger; (2) uncontrollable children who have been reported as such by their parents; (3) children, especially female children, who have been used to begging and other purposes by mercenary persons; and (4) young delinquents who either in the company or at the instigation of older persons or by themselves have committed offences under the various laws of the land. Such children are taken charge of either by the police or by officers known as probation officers and in most cases are kept in remand homes. A remand home is primarily meant as a place where a child can be safely accommodated during the period its case is being considered. It is also meant to be a centre where a child's character and behaviour can be minutely observed and its needs fully provided for by wise and careful consideration. After enquiries regarding their home conditions and antecedents have been completed, they are placed before special courts known as " juvenile courts", and dealt with according to the provisions of the Children Act. If the home conditions are found to be satisfactory, and if what is needed is only friendly guidance and supervision, then the children are restored to their parents and placed under the supervision of a trained probation officer. If the home conditions are unwholesome and uncongenial, the children are committed to institutions known as "certified schools" or "fit person institutions". " Fit person " includes any association established for the reception or protection of children. At these schools or institutions the children receive training according to their individual aptitudes, in carpentry, smithy, book-binding, tailoring, agriculture, poultry-fanning, goat-rearing, gardening, cane-work, knitting, etc. Youthful offenders, when implicated in any offence along with adult offenders, have to be tried separately in juvenile courts without the paraphernalia of criminal courts. The technique employed in juvenile courts is entirely different from that in adult courts. Penal terms are avoided, and even the word "punishment" has been dropped from the enactment in describing the treatment to be meted out. The children are regarded only as victims of circumstances or of adults.

Borstal School Act.

Adolescent criminals coming under the Borstal Schools Act are sent for detention and training in the Borstal School, Dharwar. This Institution now comes under the Mysore Government on account of the States Reorganization. Factory work and agriculture form two main heads of vocational training. Weaving; manufacture of furniture, stationery and buttons; and smithy are some of the other vocations taught. The adolescents sent to this school are given such individual training and other instruction and are subjected to such disciplinary and moral influences as will conduce to their reformation. However, boys found to be too incorrigible or unsociable to be kept in the Borstal School are transferred to the Juvenile Section of the Prison at Yeravda. Similarly, if the Inspector General of Prisons thinks that any prisoner in the Juvenile Section can be better treated to his advantage if he is sent to the Borstal School, he is accordingly transferred. Both juveniles and adolescents, when they have finished a certain period of residence in the institutions to which they are sent and have acquired some proficiency in a trade are released under a licence as prescribed in the Rules, are allowed to live in their homes, or, if they are destitute, in "After-care hostels" (institutions run by non-official agencies) under supervision, and efforts are also made to find employment for them.

Machinery to enforce legislation.

For the proper enforcement of the legislative enactments mentioned above, machinery both official and non-official, is provided. The non-official machinery is provided by the Maharashtra State Probation and After-care Association, Poona, with a net-work of affiliated bodies called the District Probation and After-care Associations which are actively functioning in more than a dozen districts of the State. These associations provide " remand homes " and " after-care hostels " and also employ probation officers to make enquiries regarding the home conditions and antecedents of children as also to supervise the young persons released either directly by courts or on licence from certified schools and the Borstal School, Dharwar. As regards offenders dealt with under the Probation of Offenders Act, the work of the District Association consists of only in making preliminary enquiries regarding the cases of alleged offenders referred to them and in carrying on, in selected areas, supervision of offenders released on probation.

The official agency is the Juvenile and Beggars Department. Until 1934, the Juvenile Department, as it was then known, was controlled by the Education Department, but from April 1934, it was attached to the Backward Class Department under the control of the Home Department. The Backward Class Officer was designated as Chief Inspector of Certified Schools. In March 1946, the administration of the Bombay Beggars Act (XXIII of 1945), was added to the duties of the Backward Class Officer. As work increased and the Backward Class Officer could not be expected to devote much attention to the expansion of work under the social laws relating to children, from the Juvenile Branch, the Maharashtra State Probation and Aftercare Association, and the Beggars Branch were divorced from the control of the Backward Class Officer from June, 1947 and these three branches were constituted into a separate department called " the Juveniles and Beggars Department" under a full-time Chief Inspector of Certified Schools and Chief Inspector of Certified Institutions. This Officer is under the control of the Labour and Social Welfare Department of the Secretariat so far as the administration of the Children Act and the Bombay Beggars Act is concerned. The Home Department of the Secretariat, which deals with the Probation of Offenders Act, guides and controls his activities in relation to that Act.

So far as the Kolhapur District is concerned, the Beggars Act has not yet been applied to any part of it. There are no institutions for beggars either run by Government or certified under the Act in the District of Kolhapur.

The Children Act was applied in 1949 to the area comprised in the District of Kolhapur.

A probation officer of the Government cadre is deputed by the Chief Inspector of Certified Schools to the district Probation and After-Care Association, Kolhapur. He has to assist the Juvenile Court Magistrate in disposing of the cases under the Bombay Children Act. He has to work as Superintendent of Remand Home and also to attend to the routine work of the Association.

The duties of probation officers are-

(1) to study the children that are brought before the Juvenile Court and to submit reports regarding them to the court suggesting a treatment programme;

(2) to supervise the children placed under their supervision by the Juvenile Court;

(3) to conduct inquiries regarding applications received by the Juvenile Court;

(4) to conduct the inquiries referred to the District Probation and After-Care Association by other institutions in respect of children and beggars;

(5) to conduct inquiries regarding children proposed to be released on licence from different certified schools and the Borstal School, Dharwar, and to supervise such children as are released on licence;

(6) to conduct inquiries and supervision work under the Probation of Offenders Act; and

(7) to do propaganda work to further the objects of the legislation relating to children and youthful offenders.

Although the Act contemplates the establishment of a separate Juvenile Court in each district, no full-time Magistrate as yet has been appointed for Kolhapur. The local Judicial Magistrate, First Class, at Kolhapur works as the Presiding Officer of the Juvenile Court. The Juvenile Court is held once a week in the Remand Home to dispose of cases under the Bombay Children Act. One or two lady honorary magistrates advise the Presiding Officer of the Juvenile Court in respect of the disposal of cases under trial.

There is a Remand Home for Boys in Kolhapur near the Padmala Corner run by the District Probation and After-Care Association. The District Association has its own new buildings for Remand Home for boys only. Girls are remanded in the Karvir Anathashram (Anath Mahilashram), Kolhapur.

Certified Schools.

There are no Certified Schools in the Kolhapur District. '

Fit Person Institutions.

There are following four Fit Person Institutions in this district: -

(1) Hindu Kanya Chhatralaya, Kolhapur.

(2) Mahatma Gandhi Vasatigriha, Camp Rukadi, District Kolhapur.

(3) Anath Mahilashram, Kolhapur.

(4) Shri Swami Vivekanand Shikshan Samstha, Juna Budhwar Kolhapur.

Habitual Offenders Restriction Act.

There is no After-Care hostel run by the District Probation and After-Care Association.

The Chief Inspector of Certified Institutions is also the Reclamation Officer, Maharashtra State. The two settlements Habitual viz., (1) Industrial and Agricultural Settlement, Bijapur and Offenders (2) Industrial and Agricultural Settlement, Khanapur, have Restriction been transferred to the Mysore State on account of the States Reorganisation.

Unlike the Criminal Tribes Act, which has been repealed, the Habitual Offenders Restriction Act is made applicable to persons of all castes and communities alike and restrictions are imposed only after judicial enquiry as prescribed under the Act.

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