Prof. Ved Kumari is a legal academician, who has immensely contributed towards improving the Juvenile Justice System in India. She is the former Dean and Head, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi and is currently the Vice Chancellor of National Law University Orissa. Prof. Ved Kumari, began her career in teaching law in 1983 and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the University of Delhi, Jammu University in India, and Vanderbilt University (USA). Her core areas of academic interest include juvenile justice laws, criminal law, gender discrimination, clinical legal education and judicial training.
Her primary focus being promotion of justice through legal education, Prof. Ved Kumari has developed various courses and has conducted many training workshops of teachers, judges, police, correctional officers, etc. in India and in countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Russia, Poland, and South Africa.
While she served as the Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi she introduced an innovative full semester course as part of course work for research scholars on ‘Andragogy – the Art of Teaching Adults’ which aimed at training aspiring law teachers in adult teaching methods and improving learning of students. A passionate trainer, she has conducted and has participated in many national and international train-the-trainer workshops on a range of subjects like teaching methods, evaluation, teaching ethics, mainstreaming gender, etc. and is actively involved in introducing restorative justice through various training workshops for judicial officers and social activists.
Prof. Ved Kumari was the first women academician who graced the position of chairperson, Delhi Judicial Academy from 2009 – 2011. During her tenure, she was instrumental in bringing several landmark changes to the methods of teaching and training judges. She introduced participatory learning by incorporating a range of innovative participatory teaching methods in judicial training and organised two teachers’s training Workshops for the teachers who train judicial officers.
Prof Ved Kumari introduced the Village Immersion Programme for Judicial Officers, a pioneer programme evolved and introduced by her in the one-year training schedule for the newly recruited judicial officers to expose them to various social issues like poverty, gender discrimination, education, etc. at the grass root. She also conceived and successfully directed the first and so far the only E-course on Judicial Ethics and Conduct for judicial officers in collaboration with the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada.
She is Fellow of Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada (2010), Fellow of Commonwealth at Warwick University, UK (1998), and a Fulbright Fellow at Vanderbilt University, USA (1997). She spent one year in Russia doing research on the Law and Advocacy in Relation to Children in Russia as part of her sabbatical leave in 2005.
Prof. Ved Kumari’s greatest contribution has been in the field of Juvenile Justice in India. She was introduced to the concept of Juvenile Delinquency in 1978 by Prof. Lotika Sarkar during her LL.M. course. Inspired by her LL.M Classes she submitted her dissertation on “Rehabilitation Process in Juvenile Correctional Institutions in Delhi” in 1980 which was the first empirical dissertation by a law student, guided by Prof. Upendra Baxi.
Intrigued by the findings of her dissertation, Prof. Ved Kumari went on to pursue her Ph.D. on “Juvenile Justice System in India” submitted under the supervision of Prof. Baxi. Her first book Treatise on the Juvenile Justice Act 1986 published by the Indian Law Institute in 1993 is a pioneering book on the subject and has been referred to as the Bible in the field of Juvenile Justice by social activists working with children. Her later books Creative Child Advocacy; Global Perspectives (ed) (2004) and Juvenile Justice System: From Welfare to Rights (2004 and 2010) have been well received by the legal and social work fraternity alike.
Her latest contribution on the subject is her book Critical Analyses of Juvenile Justice Act 2015 (2017). In this book she has pointed out the lacunae in the classification of offenses as petty, serious, and heinous and taken the position that the residuary offenses not covered in these definitions should be classified as serious and not heinous. The same was held later by the High Courts of Delhi, Punjab, Patna and Mumbai and confirmed by the Supreme Court of India in Shilpa Mittal decided on 9th January 2020. The Juvenile Justice Amendment Bill 2021 passed by Lok Sabha has modified the definition to include the left over offenses within the ambit of Serious Offenses as suggested by her.
Her Scholarly works:
Books and Monographs
CHILD ADVOCACY INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES, (First Edition) Sage Publications India Private Limited, 2018. https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Creative_Child_Advocacy.html?id=ApCHAwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN INDIA: FROM WELFARE TO RIGHTS (2nd Edition) Oxford University Press, 2010.
JOURNAL OF DELHI JUDICIAL ACADEMY, Delhi Judicial Academy ( Editor-in-Chief), 2011. https://judicialacademy.nic.in/sites/default/files/1445793385_DJA%202011%20Journal%20Vol.7%20Issue%201.pdf
III-IV DELHI STUDENT LAW REVIEW, Faculty of Law, DU (Supervising Ed.) 2006-2007.
XXVIII-XXIX DELHI LAW REVIEW Faculty of Law, DU (ed.), 2006-2007. https://lawfaculty.du.ac.in/userfiles/downloads/Delhilawreviewjournal/DLR-Vol-XXVIII-XXIX-2006-07.pdf
Articles in Indexed and Peer Reviewed Journals
Ved Kumari, Sande L. Buhai, AmariOmaka, Stephen Rosenbaum, SupriyoRouth, The Role of Law Schools in Educating Judges to Increase Access to Justice 24 (1) PACIFIC MC GEORGE GLOBAL BUSINESS AND DEVELOPMENT LAW JOURNAL (2011).
Construction of Criminality and Children 7 (1)ESSEX HUMAN RIGHTS REVIEW (DECEMBER 2010) .
“Juvenile Justice in India: Securing the Rights of Children during 1998-2008” Vol. II (4) NUJS Law Review 557 (Oct-Dec 2009).
“Juvenile Justice Act – Rights and Reality”, 2009 (8) SCC (Journal) 8.
“Quagmire of Age Issues under the Juvenile Justice Act: From Inclusion to Exclusion” 51(2) JILI 163-186 (2009).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43953437
Justice Education and the Evaluation Process: Crossing Borders 28 WASH. U. JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY (2008).
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=law_journal_law_policy
Constitutionality of sex-based definition of juvenile under the juvenile justice act 1986. (Delhi Law Review, Vol 13, 1991, p 95)(SCJL). The Juvenile Justice Act 2015 – Critical Understanding. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45163062
Articles in other Journals
“Juvenile Justice in India: Challenges and the Way Forward” in RN Srivastavaet al (ed) Child abuse and neglect: Challenges and Opportunities.(2013) Jaypee Publishers
“Why the Young are Different”, Indian Express 14th January 2013.
https://www.im4change.org/latest-news-updates/why-the-young-are-different-ved-kumari-18851.html
“Hey People Leave Those Kids Alone” Times of India Crest, 12th January 2013
Written Submission to Justice J.S. Verma Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law in January 2013.
https://feministlawarchives.pldindia.org/wp-content/uploads/submissions-by-ved-kumari.pdf
“Legal Aid Clinics in Law Schools: Ensuring Sustainability and Professionalism” in Raman Mittal and K.V. Sreemithun (Ed), Legal Aid: Catalyst for Social Change (2012) Satyam Law International.
“Juvenile Justice vis-à-vis Criminal Justice System – Relationship and Status”, in R. Thilagraj, et al (ed), Crime and Criminal Justice in Asia (2012) Mittal Publication. 7. “The Constitution Can Wait”, 50 (7) D+C (July 2009). 8. “Justice Matters”, 50 (7) D+C (July 2009).