The determination of a person's age under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 is crucial in deciding their status as a minor in an offense.

JUDGMENT

1. In wake of onslaught of COVID-19, abundant caution is being taken while hearing the matters in Court.

2. Counsel for the petitioner has shown mark-sheet of Secondary Examination, 2016 issued by Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan whereby date of birth of petitioner is reflected as 04.08.2002. Counsel for the petitioner submits that on going into details of medical test and other documents, learned trial court concluded date of birth to be 04.8.2000. Counsel for the petitioner has further drawn attention of this Court to Section 94 Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which reads as follows: -

94. Presumption and determination of age - (I) Where, it is obvious to the Committee or the Board, based on the appearance of the person brought before it under any of the provisions of this Act (other than for the purpose of giving evidence) that the said person is a child, the Committee or the Board shall record such observation stating the age of the child as nearly as may be and proceed with the inquiry under section 14 or section 36, as the case may be, without waiting for further confirmation of the age.

(2) In case, the Committee or the Board has reasonable grounds for doubt regarding whether the person brought before it is a child or not, the Committee or the Board, as the case may be, shall undertake the process of age determination, by seeking evidence by obtaining

(i) the date of birth certificate from the school, or the matriculation or equivalent certificate from the concerned examination Board, if available; and in the absence thereof;

(ii) the birth certificate given by a corporation or a municipal authority or a panchayat;

(iii) and only in the absence of (i) and (ii) above, age shall be determined by an ossification test or any other latest medical age determination test conducted on the orders of the Committee or the Board:

Provided such age determination test conducted on the order of the Committee or the Board shall be completed within fifteen days from the date of such order.

(3) The age recorded by the Committee or the Board to be the age of person so brought before it shall, for the purpose of this Act, be deemed to be the true age of that person. "

Thus, counsel for the petitioner submits that it was not open for the learned trial court to go here and there to determine the age.

3. Learned Public Prosecutor is unable to refute the aforesaid submissions.

4. This Court on carefully perusing Section 94 of JJ Act, 2015 and also copy of mark-sheet of Secondary Examination, 2016 issued by Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan wherein the petitioners age is reflected as 04.8.2002 is inclined to allow the misc. petition.

5. Accordingly, the present misc. petition is allowed. Order dated 09.9.2020 passed by learned Additional District and Sessions Judge, Raisinghnagar (in FIR No.57/2020, P.S. Muklawa, Distrit Sri Ganganagar for the offence under Section 8/21, 22 of NDPS Act) is quashed and set aside and the learned trial court as well as the Police Authorities are directed to treat the petitioner's date of birth as 04.08.2002 and treat him as minor at the time of commission of offence for all purposes.