The central legal point established in the judgment is that the parameters for granting bail to a juvenile accused, as per Section 12 of the Juvenile Justice Act, must be considered, and the grant of bail should not be solely based on the gravity of the offense.

JUDGMENT :

Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, J.

1. Supplementary affidavit filed today by learned counsel for the accused-appellant is taken on record.

2. Heard learned counsel for the appellant and learned A.G.A.

3. This criminal appeal has been preferred against the impugned order dated 2.4.2019, passed by Children's Court/Additional Sessions Judge 8th, Court No. 9, Ghaziabad, in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 863 of 2019 (Bobby v. State of U.P.), arising out of Case Crime No. 591 of 2018, under Sections 302 and 120B, I.P.C., Police Station Khoda, District Ghaziabad, whereby the bail application of the juvenile Bobby has been rejected.

4. As per first information report on 11.8.2018 at about 7:30 p.m., Santosh Gupta, the son-in-law of the informant telephonically informed him that the deceased Deepak who was living in Himalaya Vihar in his house and was trading in the area of cosmetic wholesale, has not reached to the shop nor he is available on phone. He reached on his house and knocked the door but when the door was not opened, he climbed by roof and then entered in the house and found that the dead body of Deepak stained with blood was lying there. On the scattered looks in the room, it appears that some loot was committed in the night and his son was killed by some sharp edged weapon. Hence, the first information report against some unknown persons has been lodged. Subsequently, the name of five accused persons came in light and one of them is the present appellant who has been declared juvenile by the Juvenile Justice Board, Ghaziabad, vide its order dated 15.12.2018 filed as Annexure-SA-1 to the supplementary-affidavit, in which the age of the accused appellant has been found to be 17 years 10 months and 6 days. After declaring the appellant as juvenile, the Juvenile Justice Board has transferred the case to the Children Court under Section 18 (3) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and by which the bail application of the juvenile Bobby was rejected by the impugned order dated 2.4.2019.

5. The appellant has challenged the impugned order submitting that he is juvenile and against the law and evidence on record the impugned order has been passed. It has further been submitted that the present accused-appellant is not named in the first information report. There was no eye-witness of the incident. There is no specific allegation against the juvenile. The involvement of the present accused-appellant/juvenile-Bobby has been developed on the false story of theft of Rs.2 lakhs and that too was developed after one and half months from the date of incident. It has lastly been submitted that co-accused Gaurav Yadav has already been released on bail by this Court, vide order dated 16.4.2018, passed in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 15658 of 2019.

6. From perusal of supplementary-affidavit filed today, it appears that on arrest being made of all the accused persons, it was stated by four accused persons who were major that because the deceased recognised them, therefore, accused Rahul and Gaurav hit on his neck by knife. The knife of accused Gaurav fell there whereas, as per statement of accused Rahul, he had hide the said knife somewhere in the open field at Delhi road. The same statement has also found mention in the arrest memo.

7. Learned A.G.A. has vehemently opposed and has contended that the learned trial court has rightly rejected the bail application of the accused-appellant and there is sufficient evidence against the present accused-appellant. A perusal of the statements of accused persons particularly shows that at the time of committing the offence the present accused-appellant was associated with the other four accused persons who were adult.

8. Provision has been made under Section 12 of the Act that when any person accused of a bailable or a non-bailable offence and apparently a juvenile, is arrested or detained or is brought before a board then irrespective of the accusation he shall be