Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
Where any police officer not below the rank of a sub- inspector or any other officer authorised in this behalf in the prescribed manner has reasonable ground to believe that an offence under this Act or under the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Woman and Girls Act, 1956 has been committed or is likely to be committed in respect of any child, he may take such child to a place of safety to be detained therein and shall produce such child before a competent authority within a period of twenty-four hours of such detention, excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of detention to the competent authority and no such child shall be detained in a place of safety beyond Penalty for abetting escape of child or juvenile offender. Penalty for publication of report or pictures relating to children. Detention of victimised child in place of safety. [Act No.26 of 1979] 27 the said period without the authority of the competent authority. (2) If it appears to a competent authority from information given by any person on oath or solemn affirmation that an offence as stated in sub-section (1) has been or is being committed or, unless immediate steps are taken, will be committed in respect of any child the competent authority may issue a warrant authorising any police officer to search for such child and to take him to a place of safety to be detained therein or until he can be brought before it. (3) Where any child is brought before a competent authority under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2), if the competent authority is satisfied that an offence as stated in sub-section (1) has been committed or is likely to be committed in respect of such child, the competent authority may, by order- (a) commit the child to a children‟s home, or (b) commit the child to the care of any fit person, whether a relative or not, who is willing to undertake the care of him, or (c) direct his parent or guardian to enter a recognisance to exercise proper care and guardianship for such time as the competent authority deems fit but in no case beyond the time when the child completes the age of sixteen years in the case of a boy or eighteen years in the case of a girl. (4) The competent authority passing an order under clause (b) or clause (c) of sub-section (3), may, in addition, order the child to be placed under supervision: 28 [Act No.26 of 1979] Provided that if, on receiving a report from the probation officer or otherwise, it appears to the competent authority that the fit person, parent or guardian to whose care the child has been committed, has failed to exercise proper care or guardianship it may after such enquiry as it deems fit order the child to be detained in a children‟s home.