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 both the appeals. Now against the two appellate orders, the victim's father, instead of the Government, filed Appeal No.1153 of 2018. The older juvenile, too, has filed Writ Petition No.1346 of 2018, in which the victim's father joined as an intervener.

Facts:

5. On 5th December 2016, the complainant received a phone call from his wife that their daughter, three-and-half-year old, went missing. He rushed home, searched for his daughter, and then lodged a complaint with the jurisdictional police. The next day, the police registered a crime under Section 363 of IPC. Until 18th December the case saw no progress. The next day, an anonymous person called the complainant over the phone and demanded a ransom of one crore rupees. The calls continued the next three days. When the police tracked the calls, they led to the older juvenile; they took him into custody. On the information provided by him, the police recovered the baby's dead body.

6. The older juvenile, on interrogation, has allegedly revealed that, first, he applied chloroform to the baby and, later, strangulated her by the cord of a mobile charger. He is said to have disposed of the dead body helped by the younger juvenile. In the investigation, the police have also learned how the older juvenile used to boast of his criminal ability or acumen, and how he enticed into his house the baby playing in their residential complex. They have also gathered evidence about the role the younger juvenile played not only in disposing of the body but also in trying to conceal the older juvenile's identity from the police: the use of different phones, sim cards, and, as a whole, the technological adventures. So the police added to the crime Sections 302, 385, 201, and 34 of IPC.

7. As both the accused are juveniles, the Board took up their case for determining whether they should be tried as juveniles or adults, under Section 15 of the Act. It has held that the older one should be tried as an adult and the younger one as a juvenile. The appeals rejected, the complainant and the older juvenile have filed Appeal No.5160 of 2018 and WP No.1346 of 2018 respectively. The nomenclature of the proceedings does not seem to jibe with the statutory mandate, for what lies is only a revision under Section 102 of the Juvenile Justice Act. Yet one is an appeal and the other a criminal writ petition.

Submissions:

Victim's Father (Appellant in Appeal No.1153 of 2018 and Intervener in WP No.1346 of 2018):

8. Ms. Gayatri Gokhale, instructed by Rizwan Merchants & Associates, the appellant's counsel, has strenuously contended that the murder is gruesome, and both the juveniles played equal role in that one. According to her, it is a misnomer to call these two accused juveniles, because of both the depravity of the crime and their near adul