Lodging juveniles in adult prisons amounts to deprivation of their personal liberty: SC

The Supreme Court has said that lodging juveniles in adult prisons amount to the deprivation of their personal liberty.

"Once a child is caught in the web of the adult criminal justice system, it is difficult for the child to get out of it unscathed," a bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and J B Pardiwala said.

The court also referred to a lack of awareness about the rights of the child and correlated duties, as it remained low among the functionaries of the juvenile justice system.

"The bitter truth is that even the legal aid programmes are mired in systemic bottlenecks and often it is only at a considerably belated stage of the proceeding that the person becomes aware of the rights, including the right to be differently treated on the ground of juvenility," the bench added.

On a plea of juvenility raised by a life-term convict, the court ordered an ossification test upon him at a Civil Hospital by a team of three doctors, including a radiologist.

The court also told the sessions court Agra to conduct an inquiry within one month of his claim.

Vinod Katara claimed to be a juvenile on the date of murder on September 10, 1982, for which he was undergoing a life sentence. His conviction and sentence were upheld by the Allahabad High Court as well as the Supreme Court.

Since a plea of juvenility can be raised at any stage, he relied upon the finding of a medical board in the year 2021, which stated he was around 15 years of age at the time of the incident in 1982. He also cited the family register, issued under the UP Panchayat Raj (Maintenance of Family Registers) Rules, 1970 which had shown his year of birth as 1968, indicating that he was about 14 years of age in 1982.

Holding that the family register cannot be accepted as equivalent to a matriculation certificate to prove the age of the accused, the court directed the session judge to examine its genuineness and authenticity since the ossification test may not be absolutely helpful in determining his exact age at the time of the incident.