DHARNIDHAR JHA, PANKAJ NAQVI,J. - (1.) APPELLANT Raj Kumar @ Pappu has filed the certificate of having passed the secondary school examinations conducted by the Madhymik Shiksha Parisad, U.P. in the year,1999 with the supplementary affidavit filed by him on 23.01.2013. As per the entry in respect of age of the appellant, his date of birth was 22.08.1983 and reckoning the exact age of the appellant on the date of occurrence, the court found that he was aged 16 year and 11 days on 22.07.200o when the occurrence had taken place. The evidence produced by the appellant is admissible under Rule 12 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rule, 2007. We, as such, have decided not to direct the holding of the enquiry under Section 49 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act as the exercise would be a futility as this Court could also very well look into the aspect of the case when there is an appropriate plea raised by the appellant claiming that he was juvenile on the date of occurrence.
(2.) CONSIDERING the relevant rules and admissible evidence, we do not have any hesitation to hold that the appellant was a juvenile on 22.07.2000. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 by virtue of its provision contained in Section 20 requires that when an appeal was pending on account of the conviction of the appellant who was a juvenile on the day of occurrence then in that case what the court was required to do was to examine the correctness of the finding of guilt of such a juvenile appellant and in case it had found the same correctly passed then in that case, without upholding the order of sentence, this Court was required to transmit the case to the concerned Juvenile Justice Board for passing an order in the light of Sections 15 and 16 of the said act. This was why the court embarked upon the hearing of the appeal on its merits.
(3.) WE have passed an order only yesterday, i.e., 29.05.2013 to the above effect and we have also pointed out that the appeal which was also filed by Daya Ram and Raj Karan @ Nankoo stood abated as regards them on account of their death, thus leaving the appeal surviving only on behalf of the present appellants Raj Kumar @ Pappu.;