Saurabh Malik
Chandigarh, July 27
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that Special Judge under the NIA Act cannot try a juvenile directed to be tried as an adult by the Children’s Court.
Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri also ruled that the jurisdiction would vest in the Children’s Court.
When an FIR is registered under a Scheduled Act prescribed under the NIA Act and a juvenile has been directed to be tried as an adult, the jurisdiction would vest in the Children’s Court and not in the Special Judge under the NIA Act. —Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri
The ruling came on a petition by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against a juvenile for transferring the trial from Tarn Taran Children’s Court to Mohali NIA Special Court.
It was submitted that the trial of non-juvenile co-accused was being conducted before the Mohali NIA Special Court.
Justice Puri’s Bench was told that an FIR was initially registered on September 5, 2019, for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 IPC and the provisions of the Explosive Substances Act at Sadar police station in Tarn Taran following a powerful explosion at a vacant plot in which two persons died and another lost his vision. It was alleged that they were digging a pit to retrieve buried explosives.
The NIA, thereafter, re-registered the case before taking up the investigation. The juvenile was “nominated” on the ground that he was associated with the co-accused. They were allegedly planning to carry out violent acts against a particular community and had planned to target a dera.
The juvenile, a few days short of attaining the age of 18, was directed to be tried as an adult.
Justice Puri asserted the trial was before the Children’s Court and Juvenile Justice Board’s powers were also to be exercised by it. As such, it would have the power to deal exclusively with all the proceedings under this Act relating to children in conflict with law.
Mere similarity between the procedure adopted by the NIA Special Court and the Children’s Court could not vest, or take away, a court’s jurisdiction on this ground alone.
Justice Puri added the safeguards under the JJ Act —a beneficial legislation — could not be snatched away from the juvenile since it was a socially oriented legislation deriving its source from the Constitution and international conventions and resolutions.
Children's court, not NIA Special Judge, can try juveniles, rules HC
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