Which of the following conclusions is/are valid? 1. Only a serious offence as categorised by the revised JJ Act, justifies the transfer of a case to the adult judicial system. 2. The JJ Act, 2021, categorises an offence as a serious offence based on the maximum sentence it carries, rather than on the minimum sentence. Select the answer using the code given below.

Passage

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, or the JJ Act, 2015 allows for the possibility for trying adolescents above 16 as adults if they are accused of committing a heinous offence. A heinous offence is one with a minimum punishment of seven years. Offences such as culpable homicide and causing death by negligence, which are common in drunken driving cases, are not heinous offences because they do not have a prescribed minimum punishment. The JJ Act, amended in 2021, now categorises an offence that has no minimum sentence, but has a maximum sentence of seven years or more as a serious offence which nonetheless, in the opinion of activists, does not merit the transfer of a case to the adult criminal justice system.

QUESTION

CSAT

Medium

Comprehension

Prelims 2026

Which of the following conclusions is/are valid?

Only a serious offence as categorised by the revised JJ Act, justifies the transfer of a case to the adult judicial system.
The JJ Act, 2021, categorises an offence as a serious offence based on the maximum sentence it carries, rather than on the minimum sentence.

Select the answer using the code given below.

Select an option to attempt

Explanation

Let us evaluate the given conclusions based on the passage:

Statement 1 is invalid: The passage explicitly states that the JJ Act allows for the possibility of trying adolescents above 16 as adults if they are accused of committing a heinous offence, not a serious offence. Furthermore, the passage notes that in the opinion of activists, a serious offence does not merit the transfer of a case to the adult criminal justice system. Therefore, the claim that only a serious offence justifies this transfer is completely contradictory to the passage.

Statement 2 is valid: The passage mentions, "The JJ Act, amended in 2021, now categorises an offence that has no minimum sentence, but has a maximum sentence of seven years or more as a serious offence." This clearly indicates that for an offence to be classified as a "serious offence," the determining factor is the maximum sentence it carries (seven years or more), given that there is no prescribed minimum sentence.

Since only the second conclusion logically follows from the text, the correct option is B.