RANVIR Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The complainant Ravnir has filed this revision petition challenging order dtd. 21/7/2017 passed by the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge, Palwal, whereby respondent No. 2 Pankaj @ Bander has been declared to be a juvenile holding his date of birth to be 15/7/1999 while the occurrence is stated to have taken place on 1/8/2016. In other words, as on the date of occurrence, said Pankaj @ Bander, going by the aforesaid date of birth i.e. 15/7/1999, would be 17 years and 16 days and thus a juvenile.

(2.) The learned counsel for the petitioner, while assailing the impugned order, has submitted that the learned trial Court has placed undue reliance upon the record pertaining to the date of birth maintained in the school admission register (Ex. CW1/A), whereas a perusal of the said record indicates that the same is not worth credence inasmuch as while the entry pertaining to Pankaj is recorded at serial No. 561 but the very next entry is recorded as serial No. 561-A, whereas no other entry have been assigned any alpha numeric serial number.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that in fact when the impugned order was passed, the complainant could not lay his hands on the matriculation certificate of Pankaj @ Bander, which he has now been able to procure and as per which the correct date of birth of Pankaj @ Bander is 15/7/1998. The learned counsel, in this context, has drawn the attention of this Court to Annexure P-5, which is a copy of matriculation certificate issued by the Board of School Education, Haryana, Bhiwani, wherein the date of birth of Pankaj is recorded as 15/7/1998. It has thus been submitted that in view of the doubt created as regards the entries in the school admission register, on account of a solitary entry being 'alpha numeric', which is very next to the entry recorded in respect of Pankaj, no reliance can be placed upon the same and the date of birth should be taken to be the one, which is recorded in the matriculation certificate. The learned counsel in order to hammer forth his aforesaid submission places reliance upon a judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court reported as 2016 (2) R.C.R. (Criminal) 1031 titled as Parag Bhati (Juvenile) thrgh. Legal Guardian-Mother-Smt. Rajni Bhati v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Anr., wherein in somewhat identical circumstances, it has been held that wherever there is a doubt as regards the age of the accused and two views are possible, the accused is not entitled to protection of Juvenile Justice Act.