ANKIT KUMAR SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the impugned judgment and order dtd. 30/3/2017/4/4/2017 passed by the learned Special Judge, POCSO Act, Muzaffarpur in Meenapur P.S. Case No. 320 of 2014, Trial No. 26 of 2015, the appellant has been convicted and sentenced as under:

(2.) The date of occurrence as per the prosecution's case is 26/7/2014. During the pendency of this appeal an application came to be filed giving rise to I.A. No. 1 of 2019 for sending the records of the case to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB in short) in order to ascertain the juvenility of the appellant as on the date of occurrence, on the ground that the family of the appellant got hold of matriculation certificate issued by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB in short) during the pendency of this appeal, wherein the date of birth of the appellant has been entered as 28/8/1998. A Marksheet dtd. 5/6/2014 and an Admit Card issued by the BSEB for Annual Secondary Examination, 2014 have been brought on record along with I.A. No. 1 of 2019, wherein the appellant's date of birth has been entered as 28/8/1998.

(3.) In view of the plea of juvenility taken in the application, this Court, by an order dtd. 17/2/2020, had referred the issue of ascertainment of age of the appellant as on the date of occurrence to the JJB, Muzaffarpur. The JJB, in turn, had communicated its order dtd. 9/10/2020 through letter No. 394 dtd. 13/10/2020 determining the age of the appellant to be 15 years ten months and 28 days as on the date of occurrence i.e. 26/7/2014.