Court No. - 76
Case :- CRIMINAL REVISION No. - 2022 of 2020 Revisionist :- Rajneesh Kumar Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. And Another Counsel for Revisionist :- Vikas Singh Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.,Ram Janam Singh
Hon'ble Dinesh Kumar Singh-I,J.
Heard Sri Vikas Singh, learned counsel for the revisionist, present through video-conferencing and Sri G.P. Singh, learned A.G.A. for the State, present in person. None appears on behalf of O.P. No. 2.
This Criminal Revision has been filed to quash/set-aside the judgement and order dated 20.10.2020 passed by Additional Session/ POCSO Act Judge, Fatehpur in Criminal Appeal No.
19 of 2020 relating to Case Crime No. 824 of 2018 under Sections 363, 376 I.P.C. and Section 3/4 of POCSO Act, P.S. Kotwali, District Fatehpur and order dated 09.09.2020 passed by Principal Magistrate, Juvenile Justice Board, Fatehpur.
As per F.I.R. which has been lodged by one Ashok Kumar who is father of the victim, his daughter fled from home on 04.10.2018 at about 8:00 a.m. on the pretext that she was going to attend the school but she did not reach there and her mobile was also missing.
Submission is that applicant is juvenile as his age was found to be 16 years 7 months 13 days as per Juvenile Justice Board order dated 26.08.2020, copy of which is annexed at page nos. 53-55 of the paper book. In D.P.O. report, nothing adverse has been found against the revisionist. It is stated in D.P.O. report that revisionist studied till Class IX, thereafter he left studies and had gone to Gujarat to learn work of tiles. Under Sections 161 Cr.P.C., it is clearly stated by victim that she had gone with the accused to Gujarat on her own free will at the call of revisionist without telling her parents as she wanted to marry him because she knew the revisionist from before. Under Section 164 Cr.P.C., victim has stated that she had gone to Gujarat at the call of revisionist without ticket and there, her modesty had been outraged. It is argued that since both the victim as well as accused revisionist are minors yet the bail application of the revisonist has been rejected by the Juvenile Justice Board as well as Appellate Court only on the ground of offence being of serious nature in contradiction of law laid down under Section 12 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children), Act, 2015 which provides that the bail of the juvenile can be dismissed only if the court satisfies itself that release of the accused on bail would bring him in association with known criminal or that it would expose him to moral, physical or psychological danger or the ends of justice would be defeated.
Learned A.G.A. has opposed the prayer of bail of the revisionist.
In view of the above, this Court is of the view that this revision deserves to be allowed and is, accordingly, allowed. Both the orders of the Appellate Court and Juvenile Justice Board deserve to be set aside and are, accordingly, set aside.
Let the Juvenile revisionist- Rajneesh Kumar be released on bail in the aforementioned Case No. & the Sections on his father Sri Chandrashekhar furnishing a personal bond of Rs. 1,00,000/- and two sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the Juvenile Justice Board with condition that he shall not allow the revisionist to come in association with any hardened criminal and that on each and every date of trial, he shall also appear before the court concerned. In case, he makes any default, the prosecution shall be at liberty to move for cancellation of his bail.
Taking into consideration that Covid-19 is continuing and due to which certified copy would not be possible to be obtained by the revisionist, therefore, if a copy of this order downloaded from the official website of Allahabad High Court and self attested by the counsel for the revisionist is placed before the Court, the same would be entertained.
Order Date :- 12.4.2021/A. Mandhani