Considering date of crime, 55-yr-old to be judged by juvenile board, rules Supreme Court

New Delhi (ILNS): The Supreme Court has held that the Uttar Pradesh Juvenile Board should decide how much punishment should be given to a 55-year-old man found guilty of murder. The Supreme Court said in its judgment that since the person committed the murder in 1981 when he was a minor, the juvenile board should also decide his sentence.

The bench of Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna quashed the sentence pronounced by the Bahraich court of Uttar Pradesh. The Bahraich court sentenced the convict to life imprisonment and the Allahabad High Court also upheld that a person above 16 years of age was not considered a minor under the Juvenile Justice Act of 1986.

However, the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 came into existence when the hearing of the case was over and when the High Court gave its verdict in 2018. The amended law states that if an accused is below 18 years of age at the time of the offense, the trial against him will be heard in the Juvenile Justice Court.

Justice Sanjiv Khanna has held that on the day of the crime Satya Dev was below 18 years of age, so he should be given the benefit of the law considering him as juvenile. No convict can be deprived of the right to receive relief due to him being a juvenile. 

Satya Dev had pleaded to the Supreme Court for relief in view of his being a minor at the time of the crime, when he was found guilty to murder in 1981. The court has ordered the District Judge of Bahraich to examine the case and gave the report.

On March 6, the district judge gave a report to the Supreme Court, in which Satya Dev’s age was 16 years, seven months and 26 days, on December 11, 1981, the day of the crime. On this, Justice Khanna said: “On the day of the crime, Satya Dev was less than 18 years of age, so he should be given the benefit of the law considering him as juvenile. No convict can be denied the right to get relief due to him being a juvenile.

Read the judgment here;

-ILNS