LAHORE, Sept 22: A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) has declared the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 vague to the extent of determination of age of an accused for his/her trial in a juvenile court.

The bench ordered police to determine the age of an accused at the time of offence through an appropriate inquiry. “The accused, if found below the age of 18, shall not be handcuffed,” observed the bench consisting of Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry and Justice Tariq Shamim. The bench dismissed a criminal revision petition from Babar Ali, who claimed he was a juvenile and deserved all benefits provided in the ordinance.

“The court has found that sub-section 3 of section 4 of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 declares in most emphatic and categorical terms that the juvenile court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to try cases in which a child is accused of commission of an offence. But the entire ordinance is completely silent as to how and at what stage a case shall reach a juvenile court and at what point of time and by whom a determination is to be made as to whether an accused person is a child or not,” the bench wrote in its judgment.

“Prior to sending challan, police must form a tentative opinion as to the age of the accused and the magistrate on receiving such record must examine it in entirety and make his own assessment. If the magistrate finds any deficiency, he may himself hold an inquiry to satisfy whether or not the accused is juvenile and his court is competent to try a juvenile. Otherwise he would send the case to the court which is competent to hear the juvenile cases,” the bench ruled.

The ordinance creates an impression that an ordinary court would decide if an accused was a child and needed to be tried in a juvenile court, the bench observed. “The ordinance also fails to specify the mechanism whereby an ordinary court may determine whether the accused is a child or a major,” it added.

“If an accused claims juvenility then he must raise it at the earliest possible, preferably during the course of investigation, otherwise difficulties would crop up,” the bench said.

“The case in hand is a classic case in point as a person facing a charge of murder in a trial court is trying to invoke provisions of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000 to his advantage at a belated stage and the state and the complainant maintain that the accused person’s bid in that regard is actuated by motivations which are not legitimate or above board,” the bench wrote.

The bench has ordered that a copy of the decision be sent to the Punjab police inspector general for its circulation to provincial police officers and police superintendents (investigation) across the province. The LHC office has also been directed to send copies of the decision to district and sessions judges throughout the province for their circulation to subordinate judicial officers and magistrates. —Reporter