Heinous offenders can't exploit juvenile laws: SC

Benevolent laws like Juvenile Justice Act cannot be exploited by heinous offenders to escape law, the Supreme Court has said, asking a Rajasthan native to stand trial, allegedly for raping a minor.

A bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra said if official school and other records lack clarity, courts can rely on medical evidence like ossification test to determine the age of an accused.

"It is no doubt true that if there is a clear and unambiguous case in favour of the juvenile accused that he was a minor below the age of 18 years on the date of the incident and the documentary evidence at least prima facie proves the same, he would be entitled for this special protection under the Juvenile Justice Act.

"But when an accused commits a grave and heinous offence and thereafter attempts to take statutory shelter under the guise of being a minor" courts must foil such bids, said Justice Sudha writing the judgment for the bench.

The apex court passed the ruling while upholding the appeal of an alleged rape victim's father against concurrent decisions of a Rajasthan sessins court and the state high court's to allow accused Vijay Kumar alias Bhanwru to be tried under the Juvenile Justice Act as per his claim of being below 18 years at the time of committing the alleged offence.

The two courts had passed the order despite the medical reports indicating his age to be above 19 years, while the two schools where Vijay Kumar had studied indicated different ages with the one putting it at below 18 years and the other around 20 years.

The victim was allegedly raped by Vijay and another person on May 23 in Rajasthan's Osian district.

A medical jurist, who conducted ossification test of the accused opined before the trial court that the accused was 19 years of age and  the statement of an assistant professor in radiology stated that he was above 18 years.

"In a situation when the school record itself is not free from ambiguity and conclusively prove the minority of the accused, medical opinion cannot be allowed to be overlooked or treated to be of no consequence.

"Thus, in a circumstance where the trial court itself could not arrive at a conclusive finding regarding the age of the accused, the opinion of the medical experts based on x-ray and ossification test will have to be given precedence over the shaky evidence based on school records," said Justice Sudha.

The apex court said courts must be sensitive in dealing with the juvenile involved in heinous cases like those of sexual molestation, rape, gang rape, murder etc.

"Yet, the accused cannot be allowed to abuse the statutory protection by attempting to prove himself as a minor when the documentary evidence to prove his minority gives rise to a reasonable doubt about his assertion of minority.

"Under such circumstance, the medical evidence based on scientific investigation will have to be given due weight and precedence over the evidence based on school administration records which give rise to hypothesis and speculation about the age of the accused," the bench said.