ARTI Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Sri Abhisekh Pandey, Advocate appears on behalf of respondent No. 4, father of Smt. Arti-petitioner No. 1. Sri R.A. Mishra, learned A.G.A. has placed before us the original copy of the report of the Medical Board regarding assessment of age of petitioner No. 1 Smt. Arti as per which the Board of Doctors had assessed her to be aged about 17 years. We had passed a detailed order on 2.7.2012, on which date petitioner No. 1 Smt. Arti was produced under police custody from the custody of her father respondent No. 4. We had held the very order handing over the custody of petitioner No. 1 to respondent No. 4, her father as unsustainable in law as the authority who had passed the order did not have that jurisdiction, inter alia, for the reason that the S.D.M., Rampur, Maniharan could have acted in the matter only when there was full-fledged application under Section 97 Cr.P.C. he had also noticed unfortunate consequences, which had entailed due to the passing of a completely illegal order by applying a jurisdiction, which was never vested in S.D.M., Rampur Maniharan and had high-lighted the plight of the lady being forced to marry to another man whom she did not like nor chose as her life partner.

(2.) We had under the above circumstances noted that the order of the S.D.M., Rampur Maniharan and the action of father of Smt. Arti, respondent No. 4 was quite unconstitutional and unsustainable in law. Under the above premises, we had directed Smt. Arti to be taken back to Superintendent, Nari Niketan, Meerut and, accordingly, she is lodged there presently.

(3.) The learned A.G.A. also contests the prayer of petitioners on the ground that petitioner- Smt. Arti was aged about 17 years and she was below 18 years of age and she could not be directed to be set free and the custody of the father could be the only legal custody. The contention of Sri Mishra, the learned A.G.A. hinges upon the medical report, we have just noted. We simply want to refer to the case of Jaya Mal v. Home Secretary, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, 1982 AIR(SC) 1297 which is widely being followed by all Courts to hold that three years have to be added to the age of a victim of an offence whose age has been medically assessed. Following that particular principle, if we add up three years to 17 years which is the age assessed by the Board of Doctors, we obtain 20 years, which could be said to be the approximate age of Smt. Arti. She is not a victim of an offence. There is no case registered on allegation that she was enticed or taking away rather she herself walked into the police station seeking protection of Nanauta Police on account of the supposed threat to her life at the hands of respondent No. 4 and others. These are all noted by the S.D.M., Rampur Maniharan, in his order dated 30th of December, 2011 and accordingly the lady was handed over to the Officer Incharge of that particular police station, who prayed for keeping the lady in custody of Superintendent, Mahila Sharnalaya, Meerut, from where, we have noted earlier, the lady was handed over to her father.