07.08.2026 Item No.302 Court No. 8 IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION APPELLATE SIDE CRA (DB) 380 of 2025 With CRAN 3 of 2026 Goutam Karmakar @ Majhi (CCL) -Vs.- State of West Bengal and Anr. For the appellant : Mr. Subhabrata Chowdhury Ms. Tripti Pandey …..Advocates For the State: Mr. Kallol Mondal, Ld. PP Mr. Aditya Tiwari Mr. Anamitra Banerjee …..Advocates Dictated by Apurba Sinha Ray, J. In Re: CRAN 3 of 2026 1. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner was juvenile but at the relevant point of time no Preliminary Assessment Report was filed. However, one of the CCLs was acquitted by the learned Trial Judge. The learned State Counsel Mr. Banerjee has also submitted that the learned Judge did not receive Preliminary Assessment Report and as such he has left the matter to the discretion of this Court. 2. The learned Counsel for the petitioner has further submitted that non-availability of Preliminary Assessment Page 2 Report was not brought to the attention of this Court on 07.01.2026 when the bail application of this petitioner was rejected. 3. Needless to mention that in view of the judgment in Ajeet Gurjar vs. State of Madhya Pradesh reported in (2023) 15 SCC 678 and Thirumoorthy vs. State represented by the Inspector of Police reported in 2024 (2) Crimes 21 (SC), the Preliminary Assessment Report under Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 is sine qua non for ascertaining whether the CCL was matured enough to understand the consequences of committing the offence and he should be tried as an adult or not. 4. In this case, the Juvenile Justice Board by its order dated 16.10.2019 in JJB case No. 18/2019 records that time and again the authorities were directed to form Medical Board for the purpose of Preliminary Assessment Report of the CCL boy but the same was not done due to non-availability of the clinical psychologist. It appears from the aforesaid order that the JJB at Purulia have given sufficient time for production of the counselling report of the medical board but the same could not be produced before the JJB, Purulia due to non-availability of the clinical psychologist. By order dated 16.10.2019 as aforesaid the JJB has pointed out that the counselling of the CCL by a competent medical Board cannot be postponed indefinitely as the same would result in frustration of the very purpose of preliminary Page 3 assessment, and thereafter, JJB proceeded to consider the Preliminary Assessment of the CCL with the aid of counselling report of the counsellors appointed for the JJB, Purulia as well as S.I.R. and S.B.R. After conducting an inquiry with the CCL by the Board, the JJB has concluded that CCL had enough mental and physical capacity to commit such an act as alleged and he was to be treated as an adult and accordingly, he should be tried in the jurisdictional children’s Court in the district of Purulia. Thereafter, the case record was split up and sent to the Additional Sessions Judge, 2nd Court, Purulia. On 14.11.2019 the Learned Additional Sessions Judge passed an order showing that the child special case no. 03/2019, wherein the present CCL was an accused, was tagged with SC Special case no. 25/2019 wherein the other adult accused persons were being tried and thereafter, the learned Judge had concluded that in order to save the judicial time and to avoid conflict, the trial of the CCL be held together with the accused persons of the case being SC Special case No. 25/2019. The learned Court had recorded that the learned lawyer for the CCL also asked for the joint trial. 5. Therefore, from the above it appears that the trial of the present CCL was held alongwith the other adult accused persons, which is not permissible under the law of the land. Moreover, it appears that the Preliminary Assessment Report dated 16.10.2019 was not based on the Clinical Psychologist’s Report of the CCL. In fact, Page 4 without such a report it is difficult for any judicial officer assisted by other members of the JJB to correctly assess the mental capacity of a CCL. The absence of such a Clinical Psychologist’s Report makes the Preliminary Assessment Report dated 16.10.2019 invalid and void ab initio. The learned Additional Sessions Judge cannot act upon such Preliminary Assessment Report sans Clinical Psychologist’s Report. Another defect which is very much apparent from the order of the learned Trial Court is that he did not make an independent inquiry under Section 19 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. 6. Section 19 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 in Subsection 1 is hereinbelow: “19. Powers of Children's Court. (1)After the receipt of preliminary assessment from the Board under section 15, the Children's Court may decide that- ‘(i) there is a need for trial of the child as an adult as per the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and pass appropriate orders after trial subject to the provisions of this section and section 21, considering the special needs of the child, the tenets of fair trial and maintaining a child friendly atmosphere; (ii) there is no need for trial of the child as an adult and may conduct an inquiry as a Board and pass appropriate orders in accordance with the provisions of section 18…………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………… ………” 7. From the above it appears that even after receipt of preliminary assessment report from the Juvenile Justice Board, the Children’s Court is under a duty to decide whether there is a need for trial of the child as an adult Page 5 under the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure or whether, there is no need for trial of the child as an adult. In this regard, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Ajeet Gurjar (supra), held as hereunder:- “9. There are two parts to sub-section 1 of Section 19. The first part requires the children’s Court to decide whether there is a need for trial of the child as an adult as per the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. If the Court is satisfied that the child needs to be tried as an adult as per the provisions of Cr.P.C., the Children’s Court can proceed with the trial and thereafter pass an appropriate order subject to the provisions of sections 19 and 21 of the JJ Act. 10. Clause (ii) of sub-section 1 of Section 19 is very crucial which indicates that though the word ‘may’ have been used in the opening part of sub- section 1 of Section 19, the same will have to be read as ‘shall’. Clause (ii) provides that after examining whether there is a need for a trial of the child as an adult, if the children’s Court comes to the conclusion that there is no need for the trial of the child as an adult, instead of sending back the matter to the Board, the Court itself is empowered to conduct an inquiry and pass appropriate orders in accordance with provisions of Section 18 of the JJ Act. The trial of a child as an adult and his trial as a juvenile by the Juvenile Justice Board has different consequences. 11. Therefore, holding an inquiry in terms of clause (i) of sub-section 1 of Section 19 is not an empty formality. The reason is that if the Children’s Court comes to the conclusion that there is no need to try the child as an adult, he will be entitled to be treated differently in the Page 6 sense that action can be taken against him only in terms of Section 18 of the JJ Act.” 8. In the judgment of Tirumoorthy (supra), it has been clearly laid down that the procedure provided under Sections 15 and 19 of the Act have been held to be mandatory and in this regard the Hon’ble Apex Court again referred to the decision in Ajeet Gurjar (supra). According to the Hon’ble Court, in the absence of preliminary assessment being conducted by the Board under Section 15(1) read with Section 18(3), it was impermissible for the trial court to have accepted the chargesheet and to have proceeded with the trial of the accused. 9. However, in Tirumoorthy (supra) case, no preliminary assessment was done by the Board, so as to find out whether or not the accused should be tried as an adult. In the case in hand such preliminary assessment was done by Juvenile Justice Board, Purulia but without the support of the Clinical Psychologist’s Report, and, thereafter, it reported that the petitioner, although was a minor, had sufficient maturity to understand the nature of the offence and he should be tried as an adult. 10. Therefore, the petitioner has been able to make out an arguable case in his favour. It prima facie appears that the Preliminary Assessment of the CCL was done without Clinical Psychologist’s Report. Secondly, after receipt of the Preliminary Assessment Report dated 16.10.2019, the learned Special Judge did not make any independent Page 7 inquiry under Section 19 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 to decide whether there is a need for trial of a child as an adult under the provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure and thirdly, it prima facie appears that the CCL was tried with the other adult persons which is also not permissible under the law. 11. In view of the above, we are inclined to allow the prayer as made in CRAN 3 of 2026 and we do so. 12. The CCL Goutam Karmakar @ Majhi be released on a personal bond of Rs. 10,000/- without any surety with a direction that he shall remain within the geographical limits of Purulia and shall not enter the jurisdiction where the victim or her family members reside and shall remain represented before this Court through his learned counsel on each and every date of hearing of this appeal. 13. Accordingly, CRAN 3 of 2026 is hereby disposed of. 14. All parties shall act in terms of server copy of the order downloaded from the official website of this Court. 15. Urgent photostat certified copies of this Order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties on compliance of all necessary formalities. (ARIJIT BANERJEE, J.) (APURBA SINHA RAY, J.)