AI OCR 
TaxTMI 
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2020 (1) TMI 1650
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....s case. 3. The factual background is that a juvenile 'X' is alleged to have committed an offence punishable Under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC for short) which offence is punishable with a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life or up to 10 years and fine in the first part and imprisonment up to 10 years or fine, or both in the second part. No minimum sentence is prescribed. 4. The deceased in the motor vehicle accident was the brother of the Appellant herein. The juvenile at the time of occurrence was above 16 years but below 18 years. The Juvenile Justice Board vide order dated 04.06.2016 held that juvenile 'X' has committed a heinous offence, and, therefore should be tried as an adult. The appeal filed to the Children's Court was also dismissed on 11.02.2019. Thereafter, the juvenile 'X', through his mother approached the High Court of Delhi, which vide order 01.05.2019 held that since no minimum sentence is prescribed for the offence in question, the said offence did not fall within the ambit of Section 2(33) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. This order is under challenge in this appeal. 5.....
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....he age of 18 years. Such a juvenile was entitled to various protections and these protections were uniform irrespective of the nature of the crime committed. 9. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child, (CRC for short) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20th November, 1989, and this Convention came into force on 2nd September, 1990. Under Article 1 of the CRC a child was defined as every human being below the age of 18 years. However, if the domestic law provided that the child attained majority below the age of 18 years, then that would be treated to be the age till which the child would remain a juvenile. Discretion was left to the individual countries to fix the age of juvenility under the domestic laws. 10. The next development was the enactment of The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (hereinafter referred to as the Act of 2000) which repealed the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. Under the Act of 2000 a juvenile or child was defined to mean a person who had not completed 18 years of age. Even a juvenile in conflict with law was defined to mean a juvenile who was alleged to have committed an offence. Since there was no clar....
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....ences for which the maximum punishment under the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) or any other law for the time being in force is imprisonment upto three years; xxx xxx xxx Section 2(54) "serious offences" includes the offences for which the punishment under the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) or any other law for the time being in force, is imprisonment between three to seven years; 13. A bare reading of Section 2(12), 2(13) and 2(35) clearly shows that a child or a juvenile is a person who has not completed 18 years of age, and a child in conflict with law is a child/juvenile who commits an offence when that child/juvenile has not completed 18 years of age. 'Petty offences' have been defined Under Section 2(45) to mean offences for which the maximum punishment provided under any law including the Indian Penal Code, is imprisonment up to 3 years. 'Serious offences' means, offences for which punishment under any law is imprisonment between 3-7 years. 'Heinous offences' have been defined to mean offences for which the minimum punishment under any law is imprisonment for 7 years or more. This was a departure from the previous legislation on the subject where....
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....the assistance of experienced psychologists or psycho-social workers or other experts. Explanation.--For the purposes of this section, it is clarified that preliminary assessment is not a trial, but is to assess the capacity of such child to commit and understand the consequences of the alleged offence. (2) Where the Board is satisfied on preliminary assessment that the matter should be disposed of by the Board, then the Board shall follow the procedure, as far as may be, for trial in summons case under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974): Provided that the order of the Board to dispose of the matter shall be appealable Under Sub-section (2) of Section 101. Provided further that the assessment under this Section shall be completed within the period specified in Section 14. This Section provides that if the child offender has committed a heinous offence, the Juvenile Justice Board shall conduct a preliminary assessment with regard to the mental and physical capacity of such child to commit such offence, the ability of the child to understand the consequence of the offence and the circumstances in which the said offence was allegedly committed. The Board is enti....
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....s of the child in the place of safety and to ensure that there is no ill-treatment to the child in any form. (5) The reports Under Sub-section (4) shall be forwarded to the Children's Court for record and follow up, as may be required. 18. The Children's Court constituted under the Act of 2015 has to determine whether there is actually any need for trial of the child as an adult under the provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure and pass appropriate orders in this regard. The Children's Court should also take into consideration the special needs of the child, tenets of fair trial and maintaining child-friendly atmosphere. The Court can also hold that there is no need to try the child as an adult. Even if the Children's Court holds that the child has to be tried as an adult, it must ensure that the final order includes an individual care plan for rehabilitation of the child as specified in Sub-section (2) of Section 19. Furthermore, Under Sub-section (3) such a child must be kept in a place of safety and cannot be sent to jail till the child attains the age of 21 years, even if such a child has to be tried as an adult. It is also provided that though the child may....
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....usage, if the word 'minimum' is removed then everything will fall into place. 21. On the other hand, Mr. Mukul Rohatgi, learned senior Counsel for the juvenile 'X' submitted that this Court cannot rewrite the law. He further submits that the intention of the Legislature cannot be deciphered by this Court only on the ground that a category of offences have been left out. If there is a lacuna in the scheme of the Act it is for the Legislature to correct the lacuna and this Court cannot step in. 22. It is true that if we accept the submission of Mr. Luthra, then things will fall into place. There would be only 3 categories of offences and all offences punishable with imprisonment of 7 years and above would be classified as 'heinous offence'. However, we are not solving a jigsaw puzzle where we have to put all the pieces in place. We are interpreting a statute which must be interpreted as per its language and intent. 23. The Golden Rule of Interpretation was laid down by the House of Lords in Grey v. Pearson (1857) 6 HLC 61, as follows: ... I have been long and deeply impressed with the wisdom of the rule, now, I believe, universally adopted, at least in th....
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....category of offences in the category of 'heinous offences'. Merely because removing the word 'minimum' would make the Act workable is not a sufficient ground to hold that the word 'minimum' is surplusage. 26. This Court in Vasant Ganpat Padave v. Anant Mahadev Sawant 2019 SCC Online SC 1226 (Judgment dated 18.09.2018 Civil Appeal No. 11774 of 2018) was dealing with the provisions of Section 32- F(1)(a) of the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. It was an admitted case of the parties that this was a law for agrarian reforms. The provision in issue deals with the rights of the tenant to purchase the property where the landlord is a widow, minor or person with mental or physical disability. This Section essentially gave a right to the tenant to exercise his right of purchase within one year from the expiry of the period during which such landlord is entitled to terminate the tenancy. The Section literally provided that the landlord shall send an intimation to the tenant of the fact that he has attained majority before the expiry of the period during which the landlord is entitled to terminate the tenancy Under Section 31. Though a widow or a ....
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....have been referred to by Mr. Luthra, but we are not referring to the same because the intention of the Legislature as a whole cannot be gauged from the speeches of individual members, some of whom supported the Bill and some of whom did not support the Bill. The main reliance could only be made on the objects and reasons and introduction of the Bill by the Minister which basically makes reference to offences like murder, rape, terrorism, where the minimum punishment is more than 7 years. 28. There can be no quarrel with the submission made by Mr. Siddharth Luthra that in a given circumstance, this Court can even add or subtract words from a statute. However, this can be done only when the intention of the Legislature is clear. We not only have to look at the principles of statutory interpretation but in the present case, the conundrum we face is that how do we decipher the intention of the Legislature. It is not necessary that the intention of the Legislature is the one what the judge feels it should be. If the intention of the Legislature is clear then the Court can get over the inartistic or clumsy wording of the statute. However, when the wording of the statute is clear but the....
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.... especially when the Legislature itself has enacted one. We also have to keep in mind the fact that the scheme of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 is that children should be protected. Treating children as adults is an exception to the rule. It is also a well settled principle of statutory interpretation that normally an exception has to be given a restricted meaning. 32. We may add that the High Courts of Bombay Saurabh Jalinder Nangre and Ors. v. State of Maharashtra, 2019 (1) Crimes 253 (Bom)., Patna Criminal (SJ) No. 1716 of 2018 titled Rajiv Kumar v. State of Bihar. Judgment dated 18.09.2018, and Punjab and Haryana CRR 1615 of 2018 titled Bijender v. State of Haryana and Anr., judgment dated 21st May, 2018., have taken a view that the category of 'heinous offences' cannot include offences falling within the 4th category. No contrary view has been brought to our notice. We see no reason to take a different view. 33. It was urged by Mr. Luthra that while defining 'heinous offences' the word 'includes' has been used which would mean that the definition is an inclusive definition and includes things not mentioned in the def....