Overview
- As of October 31, 2023, 55% of 100,904 cases before 362 Juvenile Justice Boards were pending, with pendency ranging from 83% in Odisha to 35% in Karnataka.
- Although boards exist in 92% of districts, about 24% were not fully constituted and each carried an average backlog of 154 cases.
- Support services were thin, with 30% of boards lacking attached legal services clinics and places of safety missing in 14 states plus Jammu and Kashmir.
- With no national repository for juvenile justice data, the report relied on more than 250 RTI requests, and only 36% of over 500 responses provided usable information, prompting calls for a child‑centric National Data Grid.
- Official figures for 2023 show 40,036 juveniles apprehended, with roughly three‑fourths aged 16 to 18.