Only juvenile court to hear bail plea of minor offenders: High Court

CHANDIGARH: The bail pleas of children in conflict with the law have to be heard only by a juvenile court even if a child is being tried as an adult, Punjab and Haryana high court has said.

The judgment came on the plea of two minors of Chandigarh who had approached high court seeking bail after children’s court dismissed the same. In the case in hand, Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) had decided that the minors would be tried as adults. The high court dealt with whether bail plea is to be filed before a children’s court (where trial of minor’s being treated as an adult are carried out) or juvenile court.

The high court bench of justice Jaishree Thakur held that keeping in view the Special Act where the main objective is to rehabilitate a juvenile. Once a procedure is prescribed within the JJ Act for grant of bail, there can be no cogent reason for deviating from the same, it said.

Petitioner’s counsel Salil Dev Singh Bali argued that the gravity of the offence cannot be taken into account at the time of considering the bail application of the juvenile. “Grant of bail to a child alleged to be in conflict with the law is the rule rather than an exception,” he had said.

“It is a well-settled principle of law that when there is special law and general law, the provisions of the special law prevail over the general law,” the bench observed, adding that JJ Act is a special law, which lays down a procedure as to how a child in conflict with the law is to be dealt with.

The emphasis being on effort to rehabilitate a child offender, and the board is to deal with other offences and for a heinous offence committed by a child above the age of 16 years has to dealt with by children’s court, after a preliminary assessment by the board, it said. Children’s court can conduct trial after transfer of the case to it by the juvenile board, it added emphasizing that JJ Act is silent and does not differentiate between bail being allowed to a juvenile who is alleged to be involved in a petty offence, serious offence or a heinous one, or between a juvenile who is being tried as an adult before the children’s court.