Most of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 is protective in temper—it asks how a child in conflict with law or in need of care and protection should be reformed, rehabilitated and reintegrated. Chapter IX changes register entirely. Here the statute turns penal, and its target is not the child but the adult: the caregiver who beats, the contractor who begs the child out for alms, the bar that pours liquor, the agency that trades in adoptions, the gang that recruits a minor as a courier. Sections 74 to 87 create a self-contained code of special offences against children, complete with enhanced sentences, doubled punishment for cruelty to disabled children, a bespoke scheme for classifying offences as cognizable or bailable, and an abetment clause that catches the instigator behind the act. For the judiciary and CLAT-PG aspirant, this chapter is a rich seam of one-mark distinctions and short-note questions—and, since the 2024 Pune Porsche prosecution of a father under Sections 75 and 77, a live area of practice. This chapter maps every offence, every sentence, and the leading authorities that frame how courts read a child-protective penal statute.
The Scheme of Chapter IX and How Courts Read a Child-Protective Penal Statute
Chapter IX of the Act, headed “Other Offences Against Children”, runs from Section 74 to Section 87 and constitutes the punitive heart of the legislation. It must be read against the grain of the rest of the Act. Where Sections 3 and 15 (discussed in our note on the general principles of care and protection) speak the language of presumption of innocence, the right to dignity and the principle of fresh start, Chapter IX speaks the language of imprisonment and fine. The two registers are reconciled by a single interpretive premise: the child is always the protected person, never the offender, in these provisions. Even where a child is used to beg or to peddle narcotics, Section 76 expressly directs that “the said child shall not be considered as a child in conflict with law”, and instead be produced before the Child Welfare Committee.
This protective orientation has constitutional roots. In Salil Bali v. Union of India, (2013) 7 SCC 705, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the predecessor 2000 Act and emphasised that juvenile legislation is enacted in furtherance of Articles 15(3), 39(e), 39(f) and 45 of the Constitution and India's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The framing matters: when a penal provision in Chapter IX is ambiguous, courts lean toward the construction that better protects the child, consistent with the constitutional mandate explained in our note on the introduction, object and constitutional basis of the Act. At the same time, because these are penal provisions creating offences punishable with imprisonment, the rule of strict construction of criminal statutes applies to the definition of the offence and the quantum of sentence—a tension the aspirant should be ready to articulate.
Structurally, Chapter IX can be grouped into four clusters: (i) confidentiality offences—Section 74; (ii) cruelty and exploitation offences—Sections 75, 76, 79, 82; (iii) substance and trafficking offences—Sections 77, 78, 81, 83; and (iv) adjectival and aggravating provisions—Sections 80, 84, 85, 86 and 87. The Supreme Court's continuing mandamus in Sampurna Behura v. Union of India, (2018) 4 SCC 433, while primarily concerned with the institutional machinery (Boards, Committees, Special Juvenile Police Units), repeatedly stressed that the protective and penal provisions are only as effective as their implementation, directing States to operationalise the entire architecture, Chapter IX included.
Section 74: Prohibition on Disclosure of a Child's Identity
Section 74 is the confidentiality offence, and it is among the most frequently litigated of the chapter. Sub-section (1) prohibits any report in a newspaper, magazine, news-sheet, audio-visual media or other form of communication, concerning any inquiry, investigation or judicial procedure, from disclosing the name, address, school or any other particular that may lead to the identification of a child in conflict with law, a child in need of care and protection, or a child victim or witness of a crime. The prohibition is broad and deliberately media-agnostic, extending to social media and digital communication. The only exception is where the Juvenile Justice Board or Child Welfare Committee, for reasons to be recorded in writing, permits disclosure in the child's best interest.
Sub-section (2) bars the police from disclosing any record of the child for the purpose of a character certificate or otherwise, in cases where the matter has been closed or disposed of—an embodiment of the “fresh start” principle in Section 3(xiv), which ensures that a child's brush with the law does not haunt later employment or education. Sub-section (3) supplies the penalty: contravention is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or fine which may extend to two lakh rupees, or both. The two-lakh fine signals that confidentiality is treated as a serious protective value, not a technicality. Because the maximum imprisonment is below three years, this offence falls into the lowest tier of Section 86 and is non-cognizable and bailable. The provision should be read alongside the procedural confidentiality safeguards examined in our note on the procedure in relation to children in conflict with law.
Section 75: Punishment for Cruelty to a Child
Section 75 is the flagship cruelty offence and the most examined section of the chapter. The core provision applies to “whoever, having the actual charge of, or control over, a child”, who assaults, abandons, abuses, exposes or wilfully neglects the child, or causes or procures the child to be so treated, in a manner likely to cause the child unnecessary mental or physical suffering. The base punishment is imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or fine of one lakh rupees, or both. Three crucial qualifications follow.
First, a humane proviso: where a biological parent abandons a child for reasons beyond their control, the abandonment is presumed not to be wilful, and the penal section does not apply—a recognition that poverty and compulsion are not cruelty. Second, an enhanced punishment where the offender is employed by or managing an organisation entrusted with the care and protection of a child: here the sentence rises to rigorous imprisonment up to five years and fine up to five lakh rupees, reflecting the heightened breach of trust by institutional caregivers. Third, an aggravated form: where the cruelty results in the child being physically incapacitated, mentally ill, rendered mentally unfit to perform regular tasks, or where the offence endangers the child's life or limb, the punishment is rigorous imprisonment for a term not less than three years which may extend up to ten years, and fine of five lakh rupees.
The phrase “having the actual charge of, or control over” is the gateway: liability attaches to those in a position of responsibility—parents, guardians, teachers, hostel wardens, institutional staff—not strangers, who are dealt with under the Indian Penal Code (now the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita). The contemporary leading application is the 2024 Pune Porsche prosecution, where the father of a teenager who drove a high-speed car while intoxicated and killed two persons was booked under Section 75 (wilful neglect and exposing the child to harm by handing over the car despite knowing he was a minor without a licence) read with Section 77. The case crystallised how Section 75's “wilful neglect” reaches a parent who creates the conditions for a child's endangerment.
Section 76: Employment of a Child for Begging
Section 76 targets the organised exploitation of children for alms. Whoever employs or uses any child for the purpose of begging, or causes any child to beg, is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years and fine of one lakh rupees. The provision then carries one of the chapter's most severe enhancements, aimed at the practice of deliberately disfiguring children to elicit sympathy: where, for the purpose of begging, the person amputates or maims the child, the punishment is rigorous imprisonment for a term not less than seven years which may extend up to ten years, and fine of five lakh rupees. The mandatory minimum of seven years marks Parliament's revulsion at maiming.
Two structural features deserve emphasis for examination answers. First, where a person having actual charge or control over the child abets the offence, that person is punished with the same punishment and is deemed unfit under the Act—capturing complicit parents and guardians. Second, and critically, the section expressly provides that the child used for begging shall not be considered a child in conflict with law and shall be produced before the Child Welfare Committee for rehabilitation, reinforcing the chapter-wide principle that the child is the victim, not the wrongdoer. This dovetails with the protective machinery and the role of the Committee, distinct from the adjudicatory Juvenile Justice Board that handles children in conflict with law.
Section 77: Giving Intoxicating Liquor, Narcotic or Psychotropic Substance to a Child
Section 77 criminalises giving, or causing to be given, to any child any intoxicating liquor, narcotic drug, tobacco product or psychotropic substance, except on the order of a duly qualified medical practitioner. The punishment is rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and fine which may extend to one lakh rupees. The seven-year ceiling is significant for the Section 86 classification: because it is punishable with imprisonment of three years and above but not more than seven years, the offence is cognizable, non-bailable and triable by a Magistrate of the First Class.
The inclusion of tobacco products alongside hard narcotics reflects a public-health orientation, and the medical-practitioner exception preserves legitimate therapeutic use. Section 77 was the second limb invoked in the Pune Porsche matter, where the bars that allegedly served liquor to the minor, and the adults who facilitated it, were sought to be booked—demonstrating that the offence catches commercial vendors and facilitators, not merely the person who physically hands over the substance, when read with the abetment provision in Section 87. The offence is conceptually distinct from Section 78, which punishes the inverse exploitation—using the child as a carrier rather than supplying the child as a consumer.
Section 78: Using a Child for Vending, Peddling, Carrying, Supplying or Smuggling Substances
Section 78 addresses the use of children in the narcotics and liquor trade as couriers and peddlers—a phenomenon that exploits a child's invisibility to law enforcement. Whoever uses a child for vending, peddling, carrying, supplying or smuggling any intoxicating liquor, narcotic drug or psychotropic substance is liable to rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and fine up to one lakh rupees. The mirror-image relationship with Section 77 is a favourite distinction in objective papers: Section 77 punishes giving a substance to the child (the child as victim-consumer); Section 78 punishes using the child to move the substance (the child as instrumentalised carrier).
Like the other substance offences, Section 78 sits in the cognizable, non-bailable tier of Section 86 by virtue of its seven-year maximum. The child involved is, once again, treated as a victim requiring care and protection, not as an offender in the drug trade—a principle that must be read with the special diversionary and inquiry procedures that protect even children who have technically participated in offences, as explained in our note on the procedure in relation to children in conflict with law.
Section 79: Exploitation of a Child Employee
Section 79 is the bonded-labour and wage-theft provision. It punishes whoever ostensibly engages a child and keeps the child in bondage for the purpose of employment, or withholds the child's earnings, or uses such earnings for the offender's own purposes. The punishment is rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years and fine of one lakh rupees. The word “ostensibly” is doing real work—it catches the employer who fronts a legitimate-looking engagement while in substance enslaving the child or appropriating wages.
An Explanation broadens “employment” to include selling goods and services, and entertainment in public places, for economic gain—thereby reaching street vending, child performers and the like. Section 79 complements rather than displaces the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, and the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976; in practice a single fact pattern may attract concurrent liability. For short-note purposes, the examinable trio is the three actus reus limbs—bondage, withholding earnings, and misappropriating earnings—any one of which completes the offence.
Section 80: Punitive Measures for Adoption Without Following Prescribed Procedures
Section 80 criminalises adoption that bypasses the statutory regime. Any person or organisation that offers, gives or receives an orphan, abandoned or surrendered child for adoption without following the provisions or procedures prescribed by the Act is punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend up to three years, or fine of one lakh rupees, or with both. Where the offence is committed by a recognised adoption agency, the in-charge and the person responsible for day-to-day affairs are punished, and in addition the agency's registration under Section 41 and its recognition under Section 65 are withdrawn for a minimum of one year.
The provision is the penal backstop to the centralised adoption architecture administered by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). Its constitutional and statutory context was illuminated in Shabnam Hashmi v. Union of India, (2014) 4 SCC 1, where the Supreme Court recognised the right of any person, irrespective of religion, to adopt under the secular framework of the Juvenile Justice Act, declining however to elevate the right to adopt to a fundamental right at that stage of social consensus. Section 80 ensures that the only lawful route to adoption is the regulated one—an off-the-books “black-market adoption” is itself a crime. Note that this offence, with its three-year ceiling and the “may extend” phrasing, generally falls into the lower classification tier under Section 86.
Section 81: Sale and Procurement of Children for Any Purpose
Section 81 is the anti-trafficking provision of the chapter and one of its gravest offences. Any person who sells or buys a child for any purpose is punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years and fine of one lakh rupees. A proviso enhances the punishment where the offender is a person having actual charge of the child—including persons employed by a hospital, nursing home or maternity home—in which case the imprisonment is not less than three years and may extend up to seven years, with the fine. The proviso is a direct legislative response to the recurring scandal of newborns trafficked from maternity facilities by staff in positions of trust.
The phrase “for any purpose” is deliberately expansive: it covers sale for adoption, labour, sexual exploitation, organ harvesting or marriage alike, without requiring proof of a particular ulterior object. Section 81 operates alongside the trafficking provisions of the Indian Penal Code / Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, and a prosecutor will frequently charge in the alternative. For the candidate, the examinable contrast is between the base form (any person, up to five years) and the trust-aggravated form (mandatory minimum three years, up to seven years), the latter pushing the offence into the cognizable, non-bailable tier of Section 86.
Section 82: Corporal Punishment
Section 82 prohibits corporal punishment of a child in any child care institution and creates a graduated penalty. Any person in charge of, or employed in, a child care institution who subjects a child to corporal punishment for disciplining is liable, on the first conviction, to a fine of ten thousand rupees; and on a subsequent offence, to imprisonment which may extend to three months, or fine, or both. A convicted person also faces dismissal from service and is debarred from working directly with children thereafter—a professional-disqualification consequence that often bites harder than the modest fine.
The section further provides that where any person who is the management or person in-charge of a child care institution does not cooperate with any inquiry or fails to comply with the directions of the Board, Committee or court, that person is punishable with imprisonment for a term not less than three years and fine which may extend to one lakh rupees—a far more serious offence than the underlying corporal punishment, designed to deter institutional cover-ups. Section 82 must be read with the Supreme Court's broader concern for institutional accountability voiced in Sampurna Behura v. Union of India, (2018) 4 SCC 433, where the Court directed rigorous monitoring of child care institutions. The provision reflects a clear legislative policy that discipline in institutional childcare may never take a physical or degrading form.
Section 83: Use of a Child by Militant Groups or Other Adults
Section 83 addresses two distinct but related evils. Sub-section (1) provides that any non-State, self-styled militant group or outfit, declared as such by the Central Government, that recruits or uses any child for any purpose, is liable to rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and fine of five lakh rupees. Sub-section (2) extends comparable liability to any adult or adult group that uses children for illegal activities, individually or as a gang, with the same punishment—rigorous imprisonment up to seven years and fine of five lakh rupees.
The requirement in sub-section (1) that the group be “declared as such by the Central Government” supplies a definitional anchor and prevents the provision from sweeping in ordinary criminal associations; those are caught by sub-section (2) instead. Section 83 implements India's obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and it operates without prejudice to liability under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Because the maximum sentence is seven years, the offence sits at the top of the middle tier under Section 86—cognizable and non-bailable.
Sections 84 and 85: Kidnapping, Abduction and Offences on Disabled Children
Section 84 is an incorporation-by-reference provision. It directs that, for the purposes of the Act, the provisions of Sections 359 to 369 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860—the kidnapping and abduction provisions—shall apply mutatis mutandis to a child or minor under the age of eighteen years, and all those provisions shall be construed accordingly. The effect is to align the IPC's age thresholds (which differ for boys and girls) with the Act's uniform definition of a child as a person below eighteen, so that the protective umbrella is consistent. With the coming into force of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the cognate kidnapping and abduction provisions are read into Section 84 by the operation of the General Clauses Act. For the meaning of “child” and allied terms, see our note on the definitions under the Act.
Section 85 is the aggravating multiplier for disabled children. It provides that whoever commits any of the offences referred to in Chapter IX against a child who is disabled, as certified by a medical practitioner, shall be liable to twice the penalty provided for that offence. “Disability” carries the meaning assigned under the disability legislation. The doubling applies across the chapter—to cruelty, begging, intoxicants, exploitation, sale and the rest—reflecting the heightened vulnerability of disabled children and Parliament's intent to deter their targeting. A favourite trap in objective papers is to ask whether Section 85 creates a new offence: it does not; it is purely an enhancement clause that operates on the penalties prescribed elsewhere in the chapter.
Section 86: Classification of Offences and the Designated Court
Section 86 is the adjectival keystone of the chapter, converting each offence's maximum sentence into a procedural classification. It establishes three tiers. First, where an offence under the Act is punishable with imprisonment for a term more than seven years, the offence is cognizable, non-bailable and triable by the Children's Court. Second, where the offence is punishable with imprisonment for a term of three years and above but not more than seven years, it is cognizable, non-bailable and triable by a Magistrate of the First Class. Third, where the offence is punishable with imprisonment for less than three years, or with fine only, it is non-cognizable, bailable and triable by any Magistrate.
This sliding scale is one of the most testable parts of the chapter because it lets an examiner combine two sections in a single question—for instance, asking whether Section 74 (six months) is bailable (yes, lowest tier) or whether Section 77 (seven years) is cognizable (yes, middle tier). The maiming-for-begging form of Section 76 and the trust-aggravated form of Section 81, which carry maxima up to ten and seven years respectively, illustrate how the same numbered section can straddle tiers depending on which limb is charged. The designation of a dedicated Children's Court for the gravest offences keeps the proceedings child-sensitive even where the accused is an adult, and integrates with the adjudicatory framework discussed in our note on the Juvenile Justice Board's composition, powers and procedure.
Section 87: Abetment and the Chapter's Penal Logic
Section 87 closes the chapter with an abetment provision modelled on the Indian Penal Code's scheme. Whoever abets any offence under the Act, if the act abetted is committed in consequence of the abetment, is punished with the punishment provided for that offence—parity of punishment between the abettor and the principal. An Explanation clarifies that an act is committed “in consequence of abetment” when it is done in consequence of the instigation, in pursuance of the conspiracy, or with the aid that constitutes the abetment. The provision is the doctrinal link that allows the State to reach facilitators—the bar owner who arranges liquor for a minor under Section 77, the parent who connives in a child's begging under Section 76, the agent who brokers an illegal sale under Section 81.
Read as a whole, Chapter IX displays an internally coherent penal logic: a graduated tariff keyed to the gravity of harm, enhancements for breach of trust (institutional caregivers under Sections 75 and 81) and for victim vulnerability (disabled children under Section 85), a refusal ever to criminalise the child, and a classification matrix in Section 86 that channels each offence to the right forum. This penal chapter is the necessary counterpart to the reformative scheme for children in conflict with law; the two are reconciled by the constitutional vision the Supreme Court articulated in Subramanian Swamy v. Raju, (2014) 8 SCC 390, where the Court, while upholding the universal application of juvenile protections, recognised the State's parens patriae duty to protect children both from offending and from exploitation. For a fuller treatment of how that vision plays out where the child is the accused of a grave crime, see our note on heinous offences and children aged 16 to 18. The full hub of chapters is available at the Juvenile Justice Act notes index.
Frequently asked questions
What is the punishment for cruelty to a child under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015?
The base punishment is imprisonment up to three years, or a fine of one lakh rupees, or both, for anyone having actual charge or control over a child who assaults, abandons, abuses, exposes or wilfully neglects the child. The punishment rises to rigorous imprisonment up to five years and a five-lakh fine for institutional caregivers, and to rigorous imprisonment of three to ten years and a five-lakh fine where the cruelty causes physical incapacity, mental illness or endangers the child's life or limb. The 2024 Pune Porsche prosecution applied Section 75 to a father who handed his unlicensed, intoxicated minor son a high-speed car.
How does Section 86 classify offences under the Act as cognizable or bailable?
Section 86 keys classification to the maximum sentence. Offences punishable with imprisonment of more than seven years are cognizable, non-bailable and triable by the Children's Court. Offences punishable with three years and above but not more than seven years are cognizable, non-bailable and triable by a Magistrate of the First Class. Offences punishable with less than three years or with fine only are non-cognizable, bailable and triable by any Magistrate.
Is a child used for begging or peddling drugs treated as an offender under the Act?
No. The Act consistently treats the child as a victim, never as the wrongdoer in these offences. Section 76 expressly provides that a child used for begging shall not be considered a child in conflict with law and must be produced before the Child Welfare Committee for rehabilitation. The same protective logic underlies Section 78, which punishes the adult who uses a child to carry or peddle substances while shielding the child.
What is the difference between Section 77 and Section 78?
Both carry rigorous imprisonment up to seven years and a fine up to one lakh rupees, but they punish opposite conduct. Section 77 punishes giving an intoxicating liquor, narcotic drug, tobacco product or psychotropic substance to a child—the child is the victim-consumer. Section 78 punishes using a child to vend, peddle, carry, supply or smuggle such substances—the child is the instrumentalised carrier. This mirror-image relationship is a common objective-paper distinction.
Does the Act enhance punishment for offences against disabled children?
Yes. Section 85 provides that whoever commits any offence under Chapter IX against a child who is disabled, as certified by a medical practitioner, is liable to twice the penalty prescribed for that offence. It is an enhancement clause rather than a new offence—the doubling operates on the penalties already laid down for cruelty, begging, intoxicants, sale and the other Chapter IX offences.
Is illegal adoption a criminal offence under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015?
Yes. Section 80 makes it an offence for any person or organisation to offer, give or receive an orphan, abandoned or surrendered child for adoption without following the procedures prescribed by the Act, punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or a fine of one lakh rupees, or both. A recognised adoption agency additionally faces withdrawal of its registration and recognition for at least one year. The Supreme Court in Shabnam Hashmi v. Union of India affirmed that the Act provides the lawful, secular route to adoption.