Page No.# 1/6 GAHC010231562019 THE GAUHATI HIGH COURT (HIGH COURT OF ASSAM, NAGALAND, MIZORAM AND ARUNACHAL PRADESH) Case No. : Crl.Rev.P./399/2019 MD. BASIR AHMED S/O LATE HAJI SIKANDAR, R/O VILL-UTTAR DIMARUPAR, P.O. AND P.S.- MERAJHAR, DIST-HOJAI, ASSAM, PIN-782435 VERSUS SALMAN AHMED AND ANR. S/O LT IRFAN ALI, R/O VILL-UTTAR DIMARUPAR, P.O. AND P.S.- MERAJHAR, DIST-HOJAI, ASSAM, PIN-782435 2:THE STATE OF ASSAM REPRESENTED BY THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR ASSA Advocate for the Petitioner : MR. B C DAS, MR D J HALOI,MR. S A HUSSAIN Advocate for the Respondent : PP, ASSAM (R2), MR J UDDIN,MR F K R AHMED BEFORE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH MAZUMDAR ORDER Advocate for the petitioner : Mr. B.C. Das, Advocate. Mr. B.K. Das, Advocate. Page No.# 2/6 Advocate for the Respondent No. 2 : Mr. K. Baishya, Additional P.P. Assam. Date on which judgment is reserved : NA Date of pronouncement of Judgment. : 19.02.2026. Whether the pronouncement is of the operative part of the judgment? : NA Whether the full judgment has been : Yes pronounced? JUDGMENT & ORDER (ORAL) Heard Mr. B.C. Das, learned counsel, assisted by Mr. B. K. Das, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. K. Baishya, learned Additional Public Prosecutor, Assam representing the respondent no. 2. None appears for the respondent no. 1 although the names are reflected in the Cause List. 2. This is a matter of 2019. The challenge in this criminal revision petition is to the Order dated 31.08.2019 passed in Sessions Case No. (T-1) 34/2018 by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (FTC), Hojai. 3. By the said order, the respondent no. 1 herein, one of the co-accused, Mr. Salman Ahmed had been held to be a juvenile by the learned Trial Court below and was directed to be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board. 4. The genesis of this case is an FIR, which was lodged by the petitioner herein regarding the alleged unnatural death of his son wherein the respondent no. 1 had been arrayed as an accused. The respondent no. 1 was thereafter arrested in connection with Murajhar P.S. Case No. 185/2017 under Section 120(B)/302 of the Indian Penal Code. At the time of medical inspection of the respondent no. 1 he was declared to have been 19 (nineteen) years of age. Page No.# 3/6 5. The respondent no. 1 after his arrest had suffered incarceration during the investigation for about a period of 3 (three) months, as stated by the learned counsel for the petitioner. Before the learned committal Court, the respondent no. 1 had produced certain documents claiming that the said documents would be evidence enough to show that the respondent no. 1 was a juvenile and could not have been tried by the regular Trial Court. However, on an appreciation of the documents placed before the learned committal Court, the learned committal Court was not convinced of the fact that the respondent no. 1 herein was a juvenile/minor and therefore, the prayers for not committing the respondent no. 1 for trial by the learned Sessions Court at Hojai had been rejected by the learned committal Court and the case was committed before the learned Sessions Judge, Hojai. 6. Upon appearance before the learned Sessions Court, Hojai, the respondent no. 1 had again prayed for that his case to be considered as a juvenile and to that effect had submitted Photostat copies of School Leaving Certificates before the learned Sessions Judge, Hojai. 7. Not being satisfied with the documents placed before it, the learned Sessions Court had called in two Court Witnesses, who were allegedly the Headmasters of the particular school from which the aforesaid certificates had been issued. Based on the evidence given by the two Court Witnesses, the learned Sessions Judge came to a conclusion that the respondent no. 1 was a juvenile and therefore, the case records were split and the part relating to the respondent no. 1 had been forwarded to the Juvenile Justice Board for further action therein. 8. Aggrieved by the declaration of the learned Sessions Judge that the respondent no. 1 was a juvenile, this criminal revision petition has been preferred. 9. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the names appearing in the records displayed by the two Court Witnesses were of one Page No.# 4/6 Salman Uddin whereas the respondent no. 1 herein is one Salman Ahmed. The learned counsel for the petitioner has further submitted that the respondent no. 1 is a relative of the petitioner and the deceased and, therefore, the petitioner has specific knowledge that the name of the respondent no. 1 is always been known as Salman Ahmed and he has never been known by the name of Salman Uddin. He accordingly submits that the findings of the learned Sessions Judge in declaring the respondent no. 1 to be a juvenile is unfounded, both in facts and in law. 10. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor Mr. K. Baishya has submitted that the Court Witnesses appeared before the learned Sessions Judge were not the Headmasters of the school, who had issued the certificates to the respondent no. 1 and in fact, they were not the concerned persons who had recorded the age of the Salman Uddin appearing in the records. In such circumstances, it is the submission of the learned Additional Public Prosecutor that the conclusions arrived at by the learned Sessions Judge was not based either on any evidence acceptable in law or on the records which clearly stated a different name than the name of the respondent no. 1. He has supported the case of the petitioner and has prayed that the matter be remanded back to the Court of the learned Sessions Judge to address the issue afresh and in the same course, allow the respondent no. 1 if so required in law, to prove his assertion of being a juvenile on his own stand and through his own evidence. 11. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor has further submitted that there are methods other than those adopted by the learned Sessions Judge to determine the age of a particular individual and none of them having been followed by the learned Sessions Court, the decision arrived at by the learned Sessions Court requires an interference of this Court. 12. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and I have also perused the scanned copy of the Trial Court Records, made available. Notice in this case was issued on 20.09.2019 and on the same day, the further proceedings of Sessions Case (T-1) No. 34/2018 pending in the Court of the learned Additional Page No.# 5/6 Sessions Judge (FTC), Hojai was kept in abeyance. The order of stay of the aforesaid proceedings continues even till today. In the interest of justice, this Court is of the opinion that when it is apparent that the learned Sessions Judge had referred to records which did not contain the actual name of the respondent no. 1 and when no opportunity was granted to the petitioner herein, who also the informant in the Police case as well as the State Respondent to respond to the assertion of the respondent no. 1 that he was a juvenile, the conclusions drawn by the learned Sessions Judge, Hojai requires an interference of this Court. Accordingly, the impugned order dated 31.08.2019 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (FTC), Hojai in Criminal Revision No. 15/2018 is hereby set aside. The matter is remanded back to the Court of the learned Sessions Court to cause an enquiry into the age of the petitioner on the date of the alleged incident in a manner known to law and by following the due procedure as laid down. 13. The interim order dated 20.09.2019 passed by this Court shall stand merge into this order and, therefore, the learned Sessions Judge, Hojai shall now upon receipt of a copy of this order re-open and continue with the trial, however, first determining the age of the respondent no. 1 as on the alleged date of the incident. 14. It is made clear that the informant and the State, represented by the Public Prosecutor/Additional Public Prosecutor shall be at liberty to raise such objections to the claim of the juvenility made by the respondent no. 1, in case any plea of juvenility is raised by Mr. Salman Ahmed, son of Late Irfan Ali, resident of village Uttar Dimarupar, P.O. & P.S.-Murajhar, PIN-782435, District- Hojai, Assam. 15. With the above directions, the present criminal revision petition is disposed of. 16. The Registry shall send a copy of this order to the learned Sessions Judge, Hojai. The petitioner shall also be at liberty to produce a certified copy of Page No.# 6/6 this order before the learned Trial Court to bring to its notice to this order. JUDGE Comparing Assistant