Allowed

Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh (Minor) v. State of U.P. and Another

Allahabad HC20 May 2019CRLA/3692/2019

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

In this criminal appeal, the Single Judge set aside a bail rejection order against a juvenile accused. The court held the lower court erred in denying bail based only on the offence's gravity without adhering to Section 12 of the Juvenile Justice Act. A personal bond and sureties were granted.

What did the court decide?

Impugned order dated 02.04.2019 set aside; juvenile released on bail with personal bond and two sureties.

Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh (Minor) Vs State of… — Bail and Remand | Allahabad HC (2019)

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A.F.R.

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Court No. - 80

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Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 3692 of 2019 Appellant :- Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh (Minor) Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Another Counsel for Appellant :- Santosh Kumar Shukla Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.

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Hon'ble Pradeep Kumar Srivastava,J.

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(Order on Appeal)

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Heard learned counsel for the parties.

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Admit.

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Learned counsel for the accused-appellant has filed supplementary affidavit today with the prayer to delete the name of respondent no. 2 from the array of respondent during the course of the day.

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Learned counsel for the appellant is permitted to delete the name of respondent no. 2 from the array of respondents during the course of the day.

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This criminal appeal has been preferred against the impugned judgment and order dated 02.04.2019, passed by Special Judge (P.O.C.S.O. Act)/Additional Sessions Judge-XI, Kanpur Nagar, in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 839 of 2019, arising out of Case Crime No. 79 of 2019, under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 120B I.P.C. and Section 3/9 of U.P. Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, Police Station Naubasta, District Kanpur Nagar, whereby the bail application of the juvenile Shivam has been rejected.

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The version of first information report is that the juvenileaccused-appellant namely Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh was appearing in the examination as solver in place of Vimal Kumar and Vimal Kumar in any way fled away from the spot but the juvenile-appellant was caught on the spot with the admit card of Vimal Kumar.

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The appellant has challenged the impugned order submitting that he is juvenile. The impugned order is unjust and against the evidence available on record. The accused-appellant has been falsely implicated only on the basis of suspicion. He has no previous criminal history to his credit. Vimal Kumar has handed over his bag to the juvenile at the gate of the examination centre and entered into the examination hall but by mistake, he left his admit card in the bag which was with the appellant. After some time, when Vimal Kumar reached to take his admit card, the police and security guards stopped them on the basis of suspicion and were taken into custody but Vimal Kumar had fled away in any manner. It has further been submitted that the juvenile was not at all appearing on the place of any candidate in the examination. He is in juvenile home since 28.01.2019 and his age has been determined to be less than 18 years but more than 16 years by Juvenile Justice Board, Kanpur Nagar, vide its order dated 22.02.2019. From perusal of the said order, it is clear that the Board while referring the case of the present appellant to the children court has referred that on the date of incident i.e. 28.01.2019, the age of the juvenile was determined to be 16 years, 04 months and 17 days. It has further been submitted that the bail application of the juvenile-appellant was rejected without considering the juvenility of the appellant. Moreover, it has been pointed out that co-accused namely Anshul Kumar, who was not a juvenile has already been released on bail by this Court, vide order dated 23.04.2019, passed in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 16567 of 2019.

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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.

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Provision has been made under Section 12 of the Act that when

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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 released on bail or placed under the supervision of a probation officer or under the care of any fit institution or fit institution except when :-

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if there appear reasonable grounds for believing that the release is likely to bring him into association with any known criminals or

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that it will expose him to moral, physical or psychological danger, or

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that his release would defeat the ends of justice.

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It has been held by the supreme court in Dr. Subramaniam Swamy vs Raju, 2014 (86) ACC 637 that a juvenile has to be released on bail unless the court has a reasonable ground to believe that his release will bring him into association of some known criminal, or will expose him to moral, physical or psychological danger or his release would defeat the ends of justice.

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Section 15 of the Amending Act only provides for transfer of a juvenile to the Children Court for trial as an adult. Where the child has attained the age of 16 years and has been alleged to have committed heinous offence, the JJ Board is required to conduct a preliminary inquiry with regard to his mental and physical capacity to commit offence, ability to understand the consequence of the offence and the circumstances in which the offence was committed considering their physical, psychological and mental status in commission of crime. Section 18(3) of the Act provides that after making the assessment under section 15, JJ Board comes to a conclusion that there is a need for trial of the child as an adult, the Board

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may pass an order for the transfer of the trial of the case to the Children Court.

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It is pertinent to mention here that Section 12 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act has not been amended so far as the parameters and yardstick for granting bail to the juvenile-accused is concerned. Therefore, while rejecting the bail application of such juvenile, it cannot be the criteria that the alleged offence is of serious and heinous nature. The order must show that the grant of bail to the juvenile-accused is against his interest as there is possibility of his being associated with known criminals, or there is some short of moral, physical or psychological danger to him or there is likelihood of end of justice being defeated. All these conditions have been incorporated in law in order to ensure justice to the juvenile.

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The impugned order has been passed without adherence to the law incorporated under Section 12 of the Act and is based on seriousness of the offence only. There was no adverse report of the Probation Officer. As such, I find perversity and illegality in the impugned order, therefore, the same is liable to be set aside.

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The appeal is allowed . The impugned order dated 02.04.2019 is set aside.

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The juvenile, accused-appellant namely Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh be released on bail and he be given in the custody of his father/guardian namely Veerendra Singh on his filing a personal bond and two sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned with undertaking that the guardian / father of the juvenile-accused-appellant shall keep the juvenile away from unsocial and criminal association and will look after his education and health, keeping his mental and social status. He will also give an undertaking that on being so

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released on bail, the accused-appellant namely juvenile Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh will not however indulge in commission of any crime and she will ensure his presence during trial before the court whenever so required by court.

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Office is directed to transmit the certified copy of this order to the court concerned for information and its necessary compliance.

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Order Date :- 20.5.2019 sailesh

Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh (Minor) v. State of U.P. and Another

Case brief

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Samrat Singh Yadav @ Digvijay Singh (Minor) v. State of U.P. and Another

Case brief

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What did the court decide?

What the court decided

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