RAMNATH Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BULWER had proclaimed long back : Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness. John Dryden while speaking about 'liberty' had stated with committal serenity in the following terms:-Oh, give me liberty! For even were paradise my prison still I should long to leap the crystal walls. Milton eulogizing liberty had so pronounced : Where liberty dwells, there is my country. The philosophers, thinkers, the law givers and the statesment have time and again accentuated on the imperative characteristics of 'liberty', for without liberty, life is not worth living. Liberty spiritualizes a human soul and clothes the living process with immense dignity. Life fondly embraces liberty and in turn, liberty enlivens life. The beauty and perfection in a way get synchronized. The nature within wonderfully corresponds to the state of liberty as guided and conferred by law. I may profitably reproduced a few lines from Wayne Krome : Truth and love are my law and worship; form and conscience my manifestation and guide; Nature and peace are my shelter and companion; Order is my attitude; Beauty and perfection are my attack.

(2.) I have begun with the prolegomenon as the petitioner, describing himself as a boy in the first year of teen and has filed this petition through his father and natural guardian seeking quashment of proceedings of Criminal Case No. 143 of 2004 pending in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate and Juvenile Justice Court, Jabalpur for an offence punishable under Section 376, IPC on the ground that the trial has not been completed within four months as mandated under Section 14 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, as his liberty has been curtailed and freedom constricted.

(3.) IN Pratap Singh v. State of Jharkhand and Anr. , ,, AIR2005 SC 2731 , 2005 (1 )BLJR434 , 2005 Crilj3091 , [2005 (3 )JCR244 (SC )], JT2005 (2 )SC 271 , 2005 (II )OLR (SC )191 , RLW2005 (2 )SC 261 , (2005 )3 SCC551 , 2005 (1 )UJ587 (SC ), the Constitution Bench of the Apex Court in Paragraph 19 expressed the view that the legislative intendment underlying Section 3 read with the Preamble, aims and objects of the Act is clearly discernible. A conjoint reading of the section, preamble, aims and objects of the Act leaves no manner of doubt that the Legislature intended to provide protection, treatment, development and rehabilitation of neglected or delinquent juveniles and for the adjudication thereof. Their Lordships further expressed the view that the enactment is a piece of social legislation meant for protection of infants who commit criminal offences and therefore such provisions require to be liberally and meaningfully construed so as to advance the object of the Act.