ONKAR NATH Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application in revision. The applicants were tried under Section 323, I.P.C., and fined Rs. 50 each. They went up in revision to the Sessions Judge who rejected their application. They have come here with a second application. The first point urged is that one of the accused at the trial was a juvenile offender and it is said that the Magistrate had no jurisdiction to try a juvenile offender because he was not especially authorised by the Local Government under Section 8, Reformatory Schools Act. It is further argued that the whole trial was vitiated. The learned Sessions Judge refused to interfere because he pointed out that the juvenile offender had in any event been acquitted, but he certainly was prepared to hold that the argument was a sound one, upon the point that the Magistrate had no jurisdiction to try the juvenile offender. I must make it very clear that I do not agree with this view. Section 8, Reformatory Schools Act, does not enact that a Magistrate cannot try a juvenile offender. It says that certain Magistrates who are not specially empowered may not exercise the power of sending a juvenile offender to a Reformatory School. Then reference is made to Section 29-B, Criminal P.C. THIS section, in my opinion, was not intended to take away the jurisdiction already conferred on Magistrates under Section 28 and Col. 8, Schedule 2, Criminal P.C. It was intended to extend to certain Magistrates the power to try juvenile offenders for certain offences which would otherwise have been triable exclusively by the Court of Session.

(2.) THE second point argued was that the accused were not examined after the evidence for the prosecution was concluded. I do not know on what this allegation is based. THE trial was a summary one and the usual form was filled in and it would appear from that form that the accused made statements which appear to be statements made after the evidence had been recorded against the accused. Even if the allegation is true, however, there is no reason for interference in revision. THE applicants made their statements to the Court and they produced evidence in defence and were obviously not prejudiced in any way. THEre is no force in this application and I reject it.