Plea Of Juvenility Has To Be Raised In A Bonafide And Truthful Manner: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court observed that the plea of juvenility has to be raised in a bonafide and truthful manner.

If the reliance is on a document to seek juvenility which is not reliable or dubious in nature, the accused cannot be treated to be juvenile, the bench comprising of Justices Hemant Gupta and V. Ramasubramanian said.

In this case, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh set aside an order passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Fatehabad declaring the accused as juvenile in conflict with law. The accused was ordered to stand trial as an adult. The Additional Sessions Judge had found the accused to be 16 years 8 months and 5 days old on the date of incident as per the Ossification Test report. The age as assessed by the Board of Doctors in the report was 23-24 years. The High Court however while setting aside the order of the  Additional Sessions Judge relied upon the family register prepared under The U.P. Panchayat Raj (Maintenance of Family Register) Rules, 1970 to hold that the plea of juvenility cannot be allowed.

The court noted that the appellant has relied on three documents such as a Birth Certificate; School leaving Certificate and the Report of the Ossification Test in support of his plea of being a juvenile.

The court noted that the date of birth was registered on 19.11.2014 after the filing of the application under Section 7A of the Act on 7.10.2014. The court therefore observed that date of birth certificate which was granted on 19.11.2014 cannot be relied upon as it was obtained after filing of the application and registered many years after the birth and not immediately or within the prescribed time period. Similarly, the court observed that school leaving certificate is unreliable and that the certificate is only a procured document for proving juvenility before the court. The court also noted that ossification test varies based on individual characteristics and hence its reliability has to be examined in each case. On Family register, the bench observed that it is a question of fact as to how much evidentiary value is to be attached to the family register, but to say that it is entirely not relevant would not be the correct enunciation of law.

 In this context, the court said:

"The appellant sought to rely upon juvenility only on the basis of school leaving record in his application filed under Section 7A of the 2000 Act. Such school record is not reliable and seems to be procured only to support the plea of juvenility. The appellant has not referred to date of birth certificate in his application as it was obtained subsequently. Needless to say, the plea of juvenility has to be raised in a bonafide and truthful manner. If the reliance is on a document to seek juvenility which is not reliable or dubious in nature, the appellant cannot be treated to be juvenile keeping in view that the Act is a beneficial legislation. As also held in Babloo Pasi, the provisions of the statute are to be interpreted liberally but the benefit cannot be granted to the appellant who has approached the Court with untruthful statement"

Observing thus, the bench dismissed the appeal.

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