JUDGMENT :

Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

1.A boy, on the verge of attaining adulthood-to be precise, seventeen and half years old-faces an allegation he has inhumanly killed a three-and-half-year-old child. Motive uncertain, the offence remains heinous.

2. Another boy, only a little younger-sixteen and half years-faces the allegation of, first, conspiring with the older boy in the offence and, second, helping him, later, to "make the evidence disappear," besides screening that older boy from police detection, too. Procedural History:

3. The Juvenile Justice Board ("the Board") assesses the older juvenile's physical health, mental maturity, and other collateral factors, and decides to try him, under Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, as if he were an adult. After applying the same standards, it, however, decides to try the younger one as a juvenile. The Board's decision engendered before the Sessions Court two appeals: One by the Government against the Board's decision to try the younger boy as a juvenile; the other by the older boy against its decision to try him as an adult.

4. The Sessions Court, on the merits, through its Orders, dated 21st February 2018, dismissed