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2003 (3) Crimes
Rajasthan High Court
D.N. Joshi, J.
Suresh Dutt —Appellant
versus
State of Rajasthan —Respondent
S.B. Cri. Revision Petition No. 141/92
Decided on 24-4-2003
(ii) Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 — Section 21(1)(d) — Petitioner convicted u/s. 302, IPC by Juvenile Court — Appeal heard by Addl. Sessions Judge and was dismissed — Competence of appellate Court — During relevant period, Rajasthan Children Act was in force — Juvenile Justice Act came into force on 2-10-1987 before final judgment was given by Juvenile Court on 19-6-1989 — In view of Section 32 r/w Section 37 of the Act, appeal could be heard by Sessions Court — Appeal was thus decided by competent Court. (Paras 18 & 22)
(iii) Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 — Section 21 — Appellant juvenile convicted u/s. 302 I.P.C. by Juvenile Court and ordered to be detained for 5 years in Juvenile Reformatory home — Petitioner was 15 years, 3 months and 10 days old when he was produ-ced before court in this case — He attained age of 16 years even before the judgment of Juvenile Court and presently he was 36 years of age — Petitioner being child below 16 years on date of commission of offence, he was to be dealt with under provisions of Children Act and now no question arose of sending him to approved school under Juvenile Justice Act for detention — Order of sending him to approved school was liable to be set aside. (Paras 31 to 35)
(iv) Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 — Section 2(h) — Juvenile — Crucial date for determining whether a person is juvenile or not is the date when he is brought before the Court and not the date of commission of offence. (Para 18)
Result : Revision disposed of accordingly.
Judgment
d.n. joshi, J.— The learned Juvenile Court convicted the revisionist-petitioner for offences under Sections 302 and 364 I.P.C. on 5th September, 1988 and referred the matter to the State Government u/s 22(i) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 (in short “the Act” hereinafter). On receipt of the letter dated 24th March, 1989 from the State Government, the Juvenile Court ordered on 19th June, 1989 to detain the petitioner for a period of 5 years in Juvenile Reformatory, Udaipur attached to the Central Jail, Udaipur.
2. As per finding of the Juvenile Court, the accused was of 15 years, 3 months and 10 days of age on the date of occurrence i.e. 4-12-1981. As per certificate of School, the date of birth of the revisionist-petitioner was 24-8-1966 and the appeal u/s 37 of the Act was preferred before the Court of Sessions on 30th May, 1989 against the above order, who transferred the same to the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Jodhpur (Special Judge, E.C. Act),which was received in the later Court on 22-2-1990. On 12th May, 1992, the learned Additional Sessions Judge reduced the duration of detention from 5 years to 3 years in Judicial Refor-matory, Udaipur u/s 22(i) of the Act. Against this judgment and appeal by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, this
revision has been filed on 17th May, 1992 u/s 38 of the Act.
3. The facts giving rise to the present case are that on an information by Shyamlal, a F.I.R. was registered against the revisionist-petitioner for the alleged murder of Vinod Kumar on 4-12-1981, who had gone with him and was not seen alive thereafter. After usual investigation, challan was sub-mitted against the accused on 11-1-1982. The learned Juvenile Court relying on the evidence of the last seen and recovery of the dead body of the deceased at the instance of the accused, convicted the revisionist-petitioner as aforesaid. The learned Juvenile Court also relied on the evidence of Identifi-cation Parade of the articles held during investigation by the then Munsif and Judicial Magistrate P.W. 16 Mr. Prashant Kumar, PW. 12 Dr. P.D. Purohit, who conducted the post mortem of the deceased found that the cause of the death was strangulation with the help of cord. According to the prosecution, the deceased was burnt after murder.
4. I have heard learned Counsel for the revisionist-petitioner as well as the learned Public Prosecutor.
5. Learned Counsel for the peti-tioner argued that the prosecution has not been able to prove the offences alleged to have been committed by the accused and challenged the finding of conviction recorded by the Juvenile Court and upheld by the Court of Sessions. Secondly, the learned Counsel argued that the Court of Additional Sessions Judge was not competent to try and hear the appeal u/s 37 of the Act and the conviction is vitiated on this sole ground. Thirdly, he has argued that as the revisionist-petitioner has now attained the age of 18 years, he cannot be sent to Juvenile Reformatory in view of the provisions of Section 21(1)(d) of the Act.
6. The learned Public Prosecutor controverted the arguments advanced by the learned Counsel for the revisio-nist-petitioner and supported the findings given by the learned Juvenile Court which were upheld by the Appellate Court on facts as well as on the point of law.
7. The case of the accused-petitioner is based on circumstantial evidence. The Apex Court in Bodh Raj @ Bodha & Ors. v. State of Jammu & Kashmir1 has held as under:—
“For a crime to be proved, it is not necessary that the crime must be seen to have been committed and must, in all circumstances be proved by direct ocular evidence by examining before the Court those persons who had seen its commi-ssion. The offence can be proved by circumstantial evidence also. The principal fact or factum means of certain probans, that is, the evidentiary facts. To put it diffe-rently circumstantial evidence is not direct to the point in issue but consists of evidence of various other facts which
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