HC redefines law on juvenile age

MUMBAI: Any accused who was less than 18 years of age when he committed an offence will be treated as a juvenile offender, the Bombay high court has ruled.
The high court on May 2 ordered the release of Imtiyaz Shaikh, 30, who was sentenced in 2003 to life imprisonment for a murder he committed in 1995 when he was 16 years and 10 months old.
Justices FI Rebello and KU Chandiwal held that the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2000, which raised the cut-off age for a juvenile from 16 to 18 years, will have retrospective effect. This could lead to the early release of several convicts who were not treated as juveniles because they committed the offence prior to the 2000 Act.
The Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act treats a juvenile offender as a special class. A juvenile can be tried only by a Juvenile Justice Board and the maximum sentence is three years. Also, juvenile convicts are not kept in regular jails but in observation homes.
Shaikh, who has been in custody since 1995, has benefited from the 2006 amendment to the JJ Act. When Shaikh committed the murder, the JJ Act of 1986 was in force. Under it, a juvenile was defined as a person below the age of 16 years. In 2000, in keeping with the United Nation Convention on the Rights of a Child, the Central government raised the cut-off age for juveniles from 16 to 18 years.
In 2005, the Supreme Court had ruled that the raising of the cut-off age would not have retrospective effect and would be applicable only after the JJ Act, 2000, came into effect on April 1, 2001.
In 2006, another Amendment was carried out to the Act, which the HC has now held gives retrospective effect to the raised cut-off age — from 16 to 18 — for a juvenile. The judgment extends the benefit of the JJ Act to an offender, who was below the age of 18 years at the time of committing the offence, at any stage of trial, appeal or revision or any other proceedings before the court.
Menaka Rao
Friday, May 16, 2008 13:28 IST
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