Summary
The Supreme Court rejected a belated juvenility claim and affirmed a murder conviction. Neither an old bail order unsupported by its medical report nor a much later ossification assessment conclusively established age at the incident. A pre-incident arms-licence application signed by the appellant supplied trustworthy contrary material. On the merits, partial rejection of a witness’s account concerning another accused did not require discarding the whole testimony, and the eyewitness and medical evidence supported the conviction.
Issues
- Whether the appellant’s late medical assessment and earlier bail order established juvenility despite his pre-incident declaration of birth date.
- Whether partial disbelief of a witness and non-examination of another eyewitness undermined the conviction.
Provisions considered
- Section 94, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015Medical age assessment was not conclusive where it was unreliable at the appellant’s later age, and other trustworthy material could be considered when the listed evidence was unavailable or unreliable. (¶ 8-16)
Held
- Juvenility may be claimed at any stage, and delay alone is not a ground to reject it. But an interim bail order, whose underlying medical report was unavailable, did not conclusively determine age. (¶¶ 7, 13)
- Ossification evidence must be assessed for reliability alongside the circumstances. Testing at a much later age could not reliably establish juvenility decades earlier; Section 94 did not reproduce the earlier rule’s express margin-of-age concession. (¶ 8-16)
- The appellant’s signed arms-licence application preceded the incident and stated a birth date inconsistent with juvenility. It was relevant, trustworthy material in the circumstances. (¶¶ 5, 16)
- Partial disbelief of a witness regarding another accused did not require rejection of the entire account. Quality rather than number of witnesses mattered, and the ocular and medical evidence supported participation with a lathi in the fatal assault. (¶ 18-23)
Result
Appeal dismissed; juvenility claim rejected and conviction under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC left undisturbed.