Juvenile Justice Board will be soon making a landmark decision on the issue that ‘whether a boy aged Seventeen years old being accused of committing Two murders be tried as Juvenile or as an Adult.
The Juvenile Justice Board is to make this landmark decision in case of a boy who is alleged to have committed Two murders in five months’ period in Delhi for raising money for a reality show and as said herein above he is only 17 years- old.
It can be seen in the provisions of the recently framed law, i.e. in the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015, which was brought into effect in the mid of January this year, that the boy could be tried as an Adult if the Board assesses him mentally and physically capable of committing the heinous offences and as possessing the ability of understanding their consequences.
In the case, it was observed that the accused boy was firstly apprehended in the last September for the charge of Kidnapping a Thirteen years- old boy for ransom and killing him later. Moreover, he was also allegedly assisted in his allegedly committed crime by his Juvenile girlfriend. And now this boy will turn 18 years- old by the next month. Further, this boy was released on bail in the month of last November and then he has also allegedly robbed and killed a 65 years- old woman in Delhi in last Saturday.
Thus, now it is with the Juvenile Justice Board to decide the said major issue, and if this boy is decided to be tried as an Adult, then this case will be among the first such major cases in Delhi. The law on this issue was passed in December and approved by the President of India on the ending day of the year 2015. And this law was passed after a long debate taken place in the legislative organ. And this legislation is applicable to the Delhi teenager who is accused of committing two murders. And this law says that if a heinous crime is committed by a person above the age of 16, then the JJ Board shall conduct a preliminary assessment with regard to his mental and physical capacity in relation to commission of such offence, and also his ability to understand the consequences of commission of such offence.
Adv. Faim Khalilkhan Pathan