THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, June 21: Whom you will call a child. Upto 12 years old person? No. Here comes a redefinition of a child in the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) going to be executed on /from midnight of July 1.
The redefinition of the child has come under the new provisions of the BNS. The definition of child is prescribed in section 2(3).
It reads ‘any person below the age of 18 years’ is a child. With the new provisions of the BNS one is a child below the age of 18!
Once 18, one becomes a voter in India. But just even a day below 18, the person is a child! No one knows whom to call a teen.
The ‘below the age of 18’ comes in sharp conflict with the concept of ‘child passenger’ in Indian trains.
As per the Indian Railway Act a child passenger is 0 to 5 years of age. There will be no ticketing for a child between the ages of 0 to 5. The 0 to 5 child passenger is to travel free by train.
Again the Indian railways has defined child passengers for ticketing between 5 years of age to 12 years of age.
As per the Indian railway, it will be half ticket for a child between 5 years to 12 years. For the railways, child is from 0 to 12 years of age only. From 12 onwards till 18 a child is an adult in the Indian trains.
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The Indian railways’ description of a child again on the basis of age is in contrast to the age prescribed by the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The BNS reiterates that any person below the age of 18 years is a child and the Indian railway has two segments of child 0 to 5 and 5 to 12 which when put together means that for Indian railway any person below the age of 12 years is a child only.
Is it in a fitness of thing to have a two definition for a child or there should be a uniformity of the upper age limit?
Above 12 years the railways treat the person as an adult and asks for a full ticket for travelling by train!
All children’s homes or shelter homes will now have to be widely broadened and made spacious to shelter persons below the age of 18 years whether such a person is a victim of vagaries of nature like disaster, riot, death of parents or person below the age of 18 years getting into the conflict with law or getting abandoned or disowned.
Medically speaking puberty comes to girls and boys in the age group of 10 to 14 and 12 to 16 years of age respectively.
How good it is to call a person below the age of 18 a child? Is this not a kind of improper address to the person?
Lawyers vouch there must be clarity on the redefinition of a child in the context of his/her age.
Let the railways, the airlines and for that matter state and private buses come out as to of what age a person is a child for them as it involves money by way of fare.
