TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2000 (5) TMI 1040
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....ner, the A.C.J.M. concluded that the petitioner was above 16 years of age on the date of the occurrence and therefore was not required to be tried by a Juvenile Court. The finding has been upheld by the Sessions Court in appeal and the High Court in revision. The petitioner has filed this petition seeking leave to appeal. Leave granted. Two questions have arisen for consideration. Firstly, by reference to which date the age of the petitioner is required to be determined for finding out whether he is a juvenile or not. Secondly, whether the finding as to age, as arrived at by the Courts below and maintained by the High Court, can be sustained. Shri U.R. Lalit, the learned senior counsel for the appellant has submitted that it is the date of the offence which is crucial for determining the age of the person claiming to be juvenile while according to the learned Additional Solicitor General it is the date on which the person is brought before the competent authority by reference to which the age of the person is required to be determined so as to find whether he is a juvenile or not. The Juvenile Justice Act, 1986, as its preamble speaks, is an Act to provide for the care, protect....
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....s of their responsibilities and roles; (vi) to constitute special offences in relation to juveniles and provide for punishments therefor; (vii) to bring the operation of the juvenile justice system in the country in conformity with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rule for the Administration of Juvenile Justice. 3. As its various provisions come into force in different parts of the country they would replace the corresponding laws on the subject such as the Children Act, 1960 and other State enactments on the subject. The Bill seeks to achieve the above objects. Clause (h) of Section 2 of the Act defines juvenile as under :- 2. Definitions.- In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, - xxx xxx xxx xxx (h) juvenile means a boy who has not attained the age of sixteen years or a girl who has not attained the age of eighteen years; Section 3 provides where an enquiry has been initiated against a juvenile and during the course of such enquiry a juvenile ceases to be such, then, notwithstanding anything contained in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, the enquiry may be continued and orders may be made in respect of such persons as if such person ha....
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....ect of whom the order has been made is not a juvenile, and the age recorded by the competent authority to be the age of the person so brought before it shall, for the purpose of this Act, be deemed to be the true age of that person. It is submitted by the learned Additional Solicitor General that order of the competent authority has been given a finality subject to decision in appeal and/or revision as regards the age of that person and the jurisdiction to record that finding commences when the person is brought before it. It is this expression which provides the vital clue to the date by reference to which the age is to be determined. There are several provisions in the Act which provide for first appearance of the person before the competent authority. Competent Authority has been defined in Clause (d) of Section 2 to mean, in relation to neglected juveniles, a Juvenile Welfare Board constituted under Section 4 of the Act and, in relation to delinquent juveniles, Juvenile Court and where no such Board or Juvenile Court has been constituted, includes any Court empowered under sub-section (2) of Section 7 to exercise the powers conferred on a Board or a Juvenile Court. Under sub-....
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....rovisions referred to herein above makes it very clear that an enquiry as to the age of the juvenile has to be made only when he is brought or appears before the competent authority. A Police Officer or a Magistrate who is not empowered to act or cannot act as a competent authority has to merely form an opinion guided by the apparent age of the person and in the event of forming an opinion that he is a juvenile, he has to forward him to the competent authority at the earliest subject to arrangements for keeping in custody and safety of the person having been made for the duration of time elapsing in between. The competent authority shall proceed to hold enquiry as to the age of that person for determining the same by reference to the date of the appearance of the person before it or by reference to the date when person was brought before it under any of the provisions of the Act. It is irrelevant what was the age of the person on the date of commission of the offence. Any other interpretation would not fit in the scheme and phraseology employed by the Parliament in drafting the Act. The use of the word is at two places in sub-section (1) of Section 32 of the Act read in conjunctio....
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....designed : (a) to meet the varying needs of juvenile offenders, while protecting their basic rights; (b) to meet the needs of society; and (c) to implement the following rules thoroughly and fairly. xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx 5. Aims of juvenile justice 5.1 The juvenile justice system shall emphasize the well-being of the juvenile and shall ensure that any reaction to juvenile offenders shall always be in proportion to the circumstances of both the offenders and the offence. [Source Juvenile Justice Act by Asutosh Mookerjee published by S.C. Sarkar & Sons, pp. 20-21] The term juvenile justice before the onset of delinquency may refer to social justice; after the onset of delinquency, it refers to justice in its normal juridical sense. (See Juvenile Justice : Before and after the onset of delinquency, working paper prepared by the Secretariat for 6th U.N. Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, quoted at page 4 of The Treatise, Ved Kumari, ibid). The Juvenile Justice Act provides for justice after the onset of delinquency. The societal factors leading to birth of delinquency and the preventive measures which would check juvenile delinquency ....
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....at would have been the intendment of the Parliament, nothing had prevented it from saying so specifically. Section 3 of the Act also provides a clue to the legislative intent. It provides for an enquiry initiated against the juvenile being continued and orders made thereon even if such person had ceased to be a juvenile during the course of such enquiry. There would have been no need of enacting Section 3 if only the age of the juvenile would have been determinable by reference to the date of the offence. Shri U.R. Lalit, the learned senior counsel for the appellant invited our attention to Santanu Mitra v. State of W.B. 1998 (5) SCC 697, Bhola Bhagat v. State of Bihar 1997 (8) SCC 720 and Gopinath Ghosh v. State of W.B. 1984 Supp. SCC 228 and to a number of other decisions which we do not propose to catalogue separately for most of them have been referred to in paras 14 and 15 of the decision in Bhola Bhagat (Supra). What has been emphasized by Shri Lalit is that in all these cases the question whether the person, arrayed as accused/appellant before the Court, was a juvenile or not was decided by taking into consideration the age of the accused on the date of the occurrence or t....
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....nior counsel, Shri Lalit submitting that the question specifically arising for consideration before this Court was also before the two High Courts. We have examined the two decisions. In Dilip Saha (supra) the Calcutta High Court, interpreting the provisions of WB children Act, 1959 which is a pari materia enactment, has taken the view that the age of the accused at the time of the commission of the offence is the relevant age for attracting the provisions of the WB Children Act, 1959 and not his age at the time of trial. Vide paras 22 to 24 the Full Bench has assigned two reasons for taking the view which it has done which in our opinion are both erroneous. One reason is that according to Section 24 of that Act a child cannot be sentenced to death or ordinarily to imprisonment then denying the benefit of the provisions of the Act to a person who was a child on the date of the offence but had ceased to be so on the date of commencement of the inquiry or trial, may result in the child being sentenced to death or imprisonment for life consequent upon his being held guilty which would be violative of Article 20 (1) of the Constitution which prohibits any person on conviction for any o....
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....sed by Parliament is ambiguous the Court is permitted to look into the preamble for construing the provisions of an Act (M/s. Burrakur Coal Co. Ltd. & M/s. East Indian Coal Co. Ltd. Vs. The Union of India and others, AIR 1961 SC 954). A preamble of a statute has been said to be a good means of finding out its meaning and, as it were, the key of understanding of it, said this Court in A. Thangal Kunju Musaliar Vs. M. Venkatachalam Potti AIR 1958 SC 246. The Preamble is a key to un-lock the legislative intent. If the words employed in an enactment may spell a doubt as to their meaning it would be useful to so interpret the enactment as to harmonise it with the object which the Legislature had in its view. The Legislative aims and objectives set out in the earlier part of this judgment go to show that this Legislation has been made for taking care of the care and custody of a juvenile during investigation, inquiry and trial, i.e., from a point of time when the juvenile is available to the law administration and justice delivery system; it does not make any provision for a person involved in an offence by reference to the date of its commission by him. The long title of the Act too sug....