HC reserves order on PIL for uniform rule to decide juvenility

Delhi High Court today reserved its order on a PIL seeking direction for framing a uniform procedure to be followed by all lower courts while determining the juvenility of an accused.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said it will give judgement on the PIL challenging the Rules under the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act.
A PIL filed in 2012 by advocate R K Tarun contended that Rule 12 of the Delhi Rules was "contrary" to the central rules with regard to the documents that are to be taken on record to determine the age of an offender.

The plea submitted that Sub Rule(3) of Rule 12 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules and the Delhi Juvenile Justice Rules should be declared as unconstitutional.
Rule 12(3) of the Juvenile Justice Rules provides the procedure to be followed in determination of age of a person claiming to be a juvenile.
The petitioner submitted that the bench should direct the government to frame rules so that all the trial courts could "uniformly" follow the procedure while determining the juvenility of an accused.

The petition has said that no two courts were uniform in determining the age of an accused who claims to be a juvenile at the time of a crime.

"There is no uniformity among the trial courts regarding the procedure to be adopted for determining the juvenility. Rather there is a lot of confusion and contradiction among the trial courts while applying their judicial minds regarding the documents which are to be relied upon while determining the claim of juvenility," said the PIL.
The plea also asked whether a certificate issued by a school regarding date of birth of a person in absence of any contemporaneous record would be considered to be authentic proof of the date of birth of a person for proving juvenility under the law.