PESHAWAR, Oct 12: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday set aside the capital punishment given to a juvenile offender and remanded his case to the trial court with the direction that he should be tried under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), 2000.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Ijaz Afzal and Justice Dost Mohammad Khan ruled that under the JJSO death penalty could not be awarded to a child. The bench ruled that the trial court had erred in awarding that sentence to the appellant, Saifullah Khan, who was 16 at the time of occurrence.

The court ordered that he should be treated as a juvenile offender and his trial should be conducted by a juvenile court under the ordinance. The appellant, Saifullah, was charged with killing another boy in the jurisdiction of police station Batagram (Charssada) on April 15, 2001.

The additional district and sessions judge concerned had found him guilty of the offence and awarded him death sentence with fine of Rs 100,000. Advocate Khwaja Muhammad Khan Gara appeared for the appellant and contended that it was on record that the appellant was 16 at the time of occurrence.

He pointed out that under section 2(b) of the JJSO child meant a person who at the time of occurrence had not attained the age of 18 years. He contended that under the law it was the exclusive jurisdiction of the juvenile court to try a child offender.

Mr Gara contended that section 12 of the JJSo prohibited the sentence of death for a juvenile. He added that the trial court should have treated him a child-offender.