The Supreme Court today slammed the Centre for its failure to coordinate with state governments and union territories for actual implementation of juvenile law aimed at reforming and protecting minors.

The apex court expressed its displeasure that despite its various orders, particularly the last order of July 9, "nothing has been done" for the past five years.

"This court on July 9 in its order asked the Centre to coordinate with state governments so that there is actual compliance rather than paper compliance in regard to the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000.

"Rather than proper compliance of the requirements of the Act, the Centre has not preferred to coordinate with the state governments and the position remained the same since the writ petition was filed in 2005," a Bench comprising justices R V Raveendran and H L Gokhale said.

"The juveniles are even now treated at the magistrate's court as criminals," it observed.

The Bench said though the Act was made like the laws of the developed countries, its implementation has not taken place and it has been left without even creating the basic infrastructure of setting up the Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) and Child Welfare Committees.

"In such circumstances, we give four weeks to the Centre to place an updated status report about the compliance of requirements of the Act by the state government," the Bench said.

"Under the Act, various requirements like constitution of JJBs and Child Welfare Committees are some of the requirements. The status report should indicate clearly to various requirements of the Act," the Bench further said.

It asked senior advocate Collin Gonsalves, who was appearing for the petitioner, to prepare a chart indicating the requirements that have been complied with and those not by the state governments.

The court posted the next hearing on November 11 and said to begin with it will take up the cases from West Bengal, Delhi, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

West Bengal claimed that it has completed the setting up of JJBs in all the districts of the state.

During the hearing, the counsel appearing for the Centre said a similar matter was pending before another Bench in which the Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium made a statements about the steps taken for the implementation of the Act.

"The issue was exactly the same," the counsel said.

However, this submission proved counter-productive and the Bench shot back that a new practice has evolved now to mention that the issue is being monitored by another Bench.

"A new system has come up. Monitoring by one bench is not enough for similar matter. You will go and say another bench is monitoring. But actually you have done nothing," the Bench said.

The Bench said if it will get a report that state governments have not complied with the requirements of the Act, it will call the secretaries concerned.

During the hearing on July 9, the court had said the law for corrective measures and reformation of juvenile offenders has been made a mockery.

"This is a pathetic situation. The entire Act has been made a mockery. Most of the states have not complied with the Act.

"With reference to some states, there is only nominal compliance," the Bench had observed.

The apex court made the remarks while granting four weeks to Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam to come out with a response on the steps taken for implementation of the law.

The PIL filed in 2005 by Sampurna Behrua had complained about the government's apathy in implementing the legislation.