HC orders medical board to determine murder accused's age

The Delhi High Court has directed AIIMS to constitute a medical board to determine the age of a murder case accused, who claimed to be a juvenile.

Justice Kailash Gambhir and Justice Sunita Gupta asked the doctors of medical board to give their individual and composite views within four weeks while assessing the age of accused.

The court was hearing an appeal of Anand Kishor, who murdered the project manager in Shangri-la hotel in 2006. The manager was allegedly a homosexual and used to take the service of Kishor, who was a sex worker. The accused killed Bhaskar over a dispute of Rs.40,000, which Bhaskar took on pretext of giving him a job.

The bench said that whether a person accused of an offence is juvenile or not is a serious question to be gone into by the court, as many serious offences are committed by various persons who later claim themselves to be juvenile.

"Therefore, in order to lay his claim of being a juvenile, the accused must honestly and truthfully place on record the necessary documentary evidence to satisfy the court with regard to the genuineness of his claim," said the court.

Not satisfied with report of Lady Harding Medical College, the court asked AIIMS to constituted a medical board and determine the age of Anand Kishor. The court said that the age estimation report submitted by the medical college did not disclosed a proper basis or rationale for arriving at the said age of more than 25 years and below 30 years of the accused.

The court observed that earlier report filed by the board was based on "casual approach" of doctors.

"The members of the medical boards who are experts in the different streams cannot adopt a casual or cavalier approach in carrying out the assessment with regard to the determination of age of an offender."

"They must disclose the rationale in brief, based on which they formed their opinion with regard to determination of age of a particular offender as on the date of his examination. In their final analysis, the gap of the estimation of the age should not be so wide that it may create further difficulty and confusion for the court to take a final view on the age of an offender claiming himself to be a juvenile," the bench said.

The court posted the matter for April 21.