PESHAWAR, Aug 21: The lower courts here have been dealing with cases of juvenile offenders despite the fact they have no jurisdiction in this regard.

It is learnt that the lower courts and police have been violating the provisions of Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2002, and are not following mandatory provisions of the law, especially production of a juvenile offender before the juvenile courts, not to handcuff a child offender and to inform guardian of a juvenile offender and probation officer about the arrest of an offender.

It is learnt that even the courts of different judicial magistrates are not aware about the provisions of the law and have been remanding juvenile offenders to police custody.

Under the law, the juvenile courts have exclusive jurisdiction to deal with the cases of juvenile offenders. Moreover, a juvenile offender could not be handcuffed.

On Wednesday, two minor boys, arrested in connection with a theft case, were remanded in police custody for two days.

The boys — Bilal Sultan (14) and Faqir Mohammed (15) — were brought handcuffed by three investigation officers of the C-Division police station. The police officials claimed that these boys were required in a theft incident took place at the residence of a local lawyer.

When the boys were produced before the magistrate, Safiullah Khan, the court without ascertaining their ages, accepted the police plea and remanded the boys in their custody.

The investigation officer concerned, when asked about handcuffing of the offenders and their production before the magistrate instead of the juvenile court, expressed ignorance about the law. Even the court officials could not provide any reason why they had assumed jurisdiction when under the law the court had no right to entertain the case.

A court official claimed that the court could only ascertain age of an accused after his medical examination and as the medical examination of the two accused had yet to be conducted, therefore, the court was not aware about the age of the accused.

He could not answer the query that how an accused could be given in police custody without his medical examination as it was a mandatory provision of the Criminal Procedure Code.

It is worth mentioning that although the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance was promulgated on July 1, 2000, the NWFP government could not establish a juvenile court up till now.

However, in April this year the chief justice of the Peshawar High Court issued an order whereby the powers of juvenile court were delegated on all the district and sessions judges in the province.

Following that order the District and Sessions Judge, Peshawar, Ziauddin Khattak, has been maintaining a special register and has sent a number of juvenile offenders either to borstal institution or has released them on probation.