Ashok Kumar Mehra & Anr. v. The State of Punjab
Background
A father (Ashok Kumar Mehra) and his son (Kushwant @ Sukhwant Kumar Mehra) were tried for the murder of one Inderjit Dhiman; the trial court acquitted both, but the High Court of Punjab & Haryana reversed the acquittal on appeal by the State and the complainant, convicting both under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC and sentencing them to life imprisonment. Both father and son appealed to the Supreme Court, but the father died while the appeal was pending, and separately the son claimed for the first time before the Supreme Court that he had been a juvenile (17 years and 5 months old) on the date of the offence.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the father's appeal stood abated by reason of his death and dismissed it as abated, without going into its merits. On the son's claim of juvenility, the Court applied its recent three-judge bench decision in Raju v. State of Haryana, holding that a claim of juvenility can be raised at any stage, even for the first time before the Supreme Court after final disposal of a case, and that an accused who was under 18 at the time of the offence is entitled to the protections of juvenile justice law regardless of when the plea is raised. Since the son's birth certificate was on record, was never disputed by the prosecution, and had already been accepted by the Supreme Court once before (when granting him bail on the same ground), the Court accepted his juvenility without further inquiry, and since he had already spent in custody far longer than the three-year maximum a juvenile could be sent to a special home, his appeal was allowed and his conviction set aside.
Lesson Learnt
A person's claim that they were a minor (juvenile) at the time of an alleged offence can be raised at any stage of the legal process, even for the first time in the Supreme Court, years later, and if proven, it entitles them to the protective, rehabilitative treatment of juvenile justice law rather than an adult criminal sentence.