JUDGMENT

P. Sathasivam, J. —

1) These appeals are filed against the common final judgment and order dated 23.07.2008 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Bombay in Criminal Appeal Nos. 476, 603 and 681 of 2006 whereby the High Court allowed the appeals and reversed the judgment dated 18.03.2006 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge for Greater Bombay in Sessions Case Nos. 87 of 2002, 886 of 2004 and 795 of 2005 convicting all the accused under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code (in short ‘the IPC’), the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in short ‘the Code’) and the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 (in short ‘the JJ Act’).

2) Brief Facts:

(a) In the year 1986, a petition was brought before the High Court of Bombay complaining about the plight of children at various children homes in Maharashtra. In the same petition, the High Court appointed a Committee, namely, the Maharashtra State Monitoring Committee on Juvenile Justice (in short “the Committee”) headed by Justice Hosbet Suresh, a retired Judge of the High Court of Bombay. This Committee received some complaints from the Child Rights Organizations like Saathi Online, Childline and CRY about the mismanagement of A