SC quashes conviction of 20-year-old, says child should not be treated as criminal

Observing that “a child should not be treated as a criminal”, the Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the 20-year-old conviction of a man who was a minor at the time of the alleged offence, saying that the procedural finality and “technical shackles” cannot be used to deny statutory benefits to a juvenile.

The top court said that a child is a victim of circumstances and is sometimes drawn to the crime world due to socio-economic or emotional and psychological reasons. “The State owes a responsibility to reintegrate the juveniles in society rather than permanently stigmatise them,” a bench comprising Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar said.

It referred to unawareness about legal protections available to minors under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and said: “The rise in the number of cases coming to this court raising the plea of juvenility for the first time in this court indicates in ample measure that there is a huge gap in the understanding of law by the stakeholders”.

It overturned the verdict against the appellant, Mahavir alias Avnish, holding that his conviction for “disappearance of evidence” was not only procedurally flawed but legally unsustainable.

Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Shree Chandrashekhar referred to the facts of the case to highlight a serious issue hindering the implementation of the juvenile law. “We must remember that the impact of industrialisation, urbanisation and migration changed the people’s daily lives. They started migrating from rural areas to the cities as a result of which there was an explosion in population… Poverty, inequality, illiteracy and the discriminatory environment in which a child grows trigger delinquent behaviour in the child, and he becomes a victim of the crime,” the verdict said. The bench said there was a huge gap in the understanding of law by the stakeholders.

“The investigating officers are generally obsessed with the motto to bring the culprit to book, and the courts before whom a juvenile is produced do not focus attention on the assessment of age of the juvenile,” it said.

In the process, the mandate of law is overlooked, and the rights of a juvenile in conflict with law get violated; the child becomes a casualty, it said.

“It is well-remembered that children are the greatest assets of any nation and they should be nurtured and grown as responsible citizens, mentally alert, physically fit and morally healthy to contribute to the betterment of society,” it said. The greatest recompense that the state can gain from expenditure on children is in the form of a powerful human resource which would be ready to take its place in the forward march of the nation, it said.

“In conclusion, the existing system needs further strengthening, effective monitoring of investigative processes and implementation of the statutory provisions,” it said.

The matter dates back to September 2004, when a crime was registered in Morena, Madhya Pradesh, following the discovery of the bodies of a woman, Bhuri, and her infant daughter on a railway track.

Mahavir, along with his family members, was charged with murder, dowry death and causing the disappearance of evidence under Section 201 of the IPC.

In 2005, the trial court acquitted the family of murder and dowry death after witnesses turned hostile. However, it convicted Mahavir under Section 201 IPC, sentencing him to three years of rigorous imprisonment. Years later, Mahavir raised a plea of juvenility, asserting he was only 17 years old at the time of the incident.

While a Juvenile Justice Board inquiry confirmed his date of birth as July 1, 1987, making him a minor in 2004, the Madhya Pradesh High Court refused to intervene.

The high court had reasoned that since the case had previously reached the Supreme Court, it lacked the jurisdiction to “reopen” a settled judgment under Section 482 of the CrPC.

The top court criticised the high court for being “over-cautious” and committing an “error of record”.

The bench clarified that Mahavir’s earlier petition to the Supreme Court had been withdrawn to specifically seek the plea of juvenility, meaning the case had not attained the kind of “finality” that bars a jurisdictional correction. It reiterated that Section 7A of the juvenile law allows a claim of juvenility to be raised before any court at any time, even after the final disposal of a case.

It said that the state and the courts have a duty to act in the best interests of children and ensure they are not denied legal protections due to a “gap in the understanding of law”.