Court No. - 67
Case :- MATTERS UNDER ARTICLE 227 No. - 290 of 2019 Petitioner :- Pawan (Minor) Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Ram Kumar Dubey Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Rahul Chaturvedi,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner as well as learned A.G.A.
By means of the present petition, the petitioner who claims himself to be a minor, is assailing the order dated 06.11.2018 passed by Special Judge(POCSO Act)/Additional Sessions Judge, 8th, Moradabad while deciding the Criminal Appeal No.139 of 2017 by which learned Sessions Judge has set aside the order of Juvenile Justice Board dated 15.09.2017.
I have got an opportunity to look into both the orders i.e. order of Juvenile Justice Board, Moradabad as well as learned Appellate Court dated 06.11.2018. I am constraint to record that both the orders suffer manifest error of law. Learned Juvenile Justice Board while declaring the petitioner as Juvenile, has not taken into account the mandatory provisions of Section 15 and its proviso provided in the Juvenile Justice(Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and on his own, has recorded that the petitioner is unable to understand the repercussions of his conduct without putting any delinquent before any psychologist or psycho-social worker or any other expert as contemplated under Section 15 of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and when the opposite party no.2 has challenged the said order before learned Appellate Court, learned court too has given strange reasoning by allowing the appeal and quashing the order dated 15.09.2017.
Learned Appellate Court has mentioned that delinquent has not raised any objection with regard to the age when the Investigating Officer of the case has submitted the charge sheet. The reasoning adopted by learned Appellate Court is too absurd and against established law.
Under circumstances, I hereby quash both the orders i.e. order dated 15.09.2017 and 06.11.2018 with the direction that the delinquent would appear before the Juvenile Justice Board on or before 15.03.2019 and Juvenile Justice Board would decide its juvenility after taking recourse of the various provisions provided under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of children) Act, 2015 strictly in accordance with law by well reasoned order within a period of six weeks thereafter.
With the aforesaid observations, the present petition stands disposed of.
Order Date :- 28.2.2019 Sumit S