SURESH PRASAD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ORDER :- In this miscellaneous case the order passed by the lower Court on 16-1-1999 has been challenged.

(2.) The Sessions Court in Session Trial No. 347/1993 has directed the trial of an accused, Prabhakar Prasad to be held by a Juvenile Court instead of his trial with other accused persons of the case. It was submitted before me by the petitioner's lawyer, who is the informant of the case relating to the aforesaid sessions trial that the accused, Prabhakar Prasad, Opposite party No. 2, failed to take the plea of minority either in the commital Court or in the Sessions Court prior to the stage when several witnesses were examined. So the plea taken at the belated stage would not be entertained and, therefore, the Sessions Court was wrong in remitting the case of the accused-opposite party No. 2 to the Juvenile Court. The Sessions Court was rather competent to try the case of Prabhakar Prasad along with other accused persons and conclude it under the provisions of law. The petitioner's lawyer relied on the two decisions reported in (1996) 1 Pat LJR 73 : (AIR 1996 SC 905) Abdul Mannan v. The State of West Bengal and the decision reported in 1999 (2) PLJR 660.

(3.) Before I discuss the questions raised in this miscellaneous case, I would like to refer to the facts of the two decisions referred to above. In Abdul Mannan (AIR 1996 SC 905) (supra), the Supreme Court was entertaining the appeal against the judgment of the Sessions Court of the State of West Bengal. Two questions were raised in that case before the Supreme Court; firstly, whether the Additional Sessions Judge was a Sessions Judge and whether a Juvenile under the West Bengal Children Act, 1959 was entitled to the benefit of the Juvenile Justice Act (Central Act) which had intervened during the period of trial of the juvenile. The Supreme Court held that the Addl. Sessions Judge was very much a Sessions Court as defined in the Code of Criminal Procedure and it was further held that since under the West Bengal Children Act, 1959, no juvenile Court was constituted and when the Central Act came into force, the concerned accused had already become major and hence the judgment of conviction recorded by the Sessions Court was justified and the benefit to the juvenile under the Central Act was no longer available to him.