Point of Law - The plea of juvenility has been taken only before this Court at time of appeal and it has been submitted that claim of juvenility may be raised at any stage under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, read with Section 25 of Repealing Act, 2015. The delay in raising the claim of juvenility cannot be a ground for rejection of such claim and the same can be raised even after conviction.

JUDGMENT

Rumi Kumari Phukan, J.

1. Both appeals have been preferred against the same judgment, hence, taken together and disposed by this common order and judgment.

2. The victim Rajat and Ranjan, both are brothers and the accused persons also belonged to the same village and were neighbours. On the fateful day, i.e., on 29.01.1998, while both brothers were working in their house, the bullock belonging to the accused Bubul sustained injury and at this, at about 12'O clock, the accused Bubul dragged the victim Rajat and Ranjan from their house on suspicion that they have mutilated his bullock and they were tied nearby a Namghar and all of the accused persons assaulted both the victims, resulting severe injuries on their person. The mother of the victim who was in the house at that time, although resisted the accused persons from assaulting her sons, but the accused persons did not pay heed to the same. They kept on assaulting both the victims with the allegation that they have caused hurt to the bullock of Bubul. As the father of the victims went out for his daily hazira work, mother of the victim went to inform him and on return, it was found that Rajat was lying with severe injuries on his person. Police arrived and took Rajat to the hospital, but on the very day at night, he expired. The mother of the victim filed the FIR and a case was registered and investigated into and finally submitted charge sheet against all the accused persons under Sections 147/448/323/324/302, IPC.

3. All the accused persons faced the trial and denied the charge framed under Sections 323/34, 302/34, IPC and claimed to be tried. To bring home the charge, prosecution examined 9 (nine) witnesses and defence examined none. Plea of defence is of total denial. Statement of accused persons recorded and defence examined none. At the conclusion of the trial, accused persons were held guilty and convicted under Section 304(II), IPC and sentenced each of the accused persons to RI for 3 years and also to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/- each, in default, SI for one month. Further, each of the accused persons were sentenced to RI for 2 months and to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/-, in default, SI for 15 days under Section 324, IPC. They are also sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000/-, in default, SI for 15 days, under Section 323, IPC, with a direction that such sentences will run concurrently.

4. Present appeals have been preferred against the impugned judgment and order.

5. I have heard the submissions of learned counsel for the appellant.

6. The contentions raised by the learned counsel for the appellants being similar, have been taken into consideration by this Court. The prime challenge to the prosecution case of the appellants is that no independent witness is examined by prosecution despite there was huge gathering of people at the relevant time; that the inconsistency of the evidence of PW-2 and PW-3 is overlooked by the trial Court, the medical evidence does not support the injury sustained by the victim, that the IO has contradicted the testimony of witnesses as regards the place of occurrence.

7. It may be mentioned here that although plea of juvenility was not raised before the trial Court, but the same has been raised before this appellate Court as regards the appellant Dharmeswar Phukan alias Dharmendra alias Dhrubajyoti. In terms of Section 7-A of the Juvenile Justice Act, such a plea can be adjudicated by the appellate Court also and accordingly, matter was forwarded to the learned trial Court to conduct an enquiry as regards the age of the said accused person. After conducting an enquiry, the learned Sessions Judge on the basis of the school certificate, HSLC pass certificate, admit card produced and verified from the Secretary of the Board of Secondary Education has given a finding that as per the above documents, the date of birth of the accused Dharmeswar was 31.12.1981 and the date of commission of the offence, i.e., on 29.01.1998, the accused was 16 years 29 d