The Supreme Court on May 20 clarified that the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) has no authority to review or revise its own orders. The Court held that the JJB cannot take a contradictory stance in later proceedings once a decision has already been made, as the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 does not provide any review powers to the Board.
The bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan delivered this ruling while hearing a case where the JJB had earlier accepted a juvenile’s date of birth as 08.09.2003, based on school records. However, in a later proceeding, the JJB questioned the same date of birth and instead sought a medical board's opinion.
“It is not open to the JJB to say in a subsequent proceeding that date of birth of respondent No. 2 is not 08.09.2003 and thereafter proceed to have the opinion of the medical board. If this is permitted, it will amount to reviewing its earlier order. The JJ Act, 2015 confers no such power of review upon the JJB,” the Court noted.
The Court emphasized that review powers must be explicitly mentioned in the law, or arise by necessary implication. In this case, no such power exists under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015.
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This case involved a situation where the JJB ignored the school certificate and instead relied on a medical report, which estimated the respondent's age as 21 years. However, under Section 94(2) of the JJ Act, medical evidence can only be used when documentary proof is unavailable.
“School records carry greater evidentiary value than medical opinions. Ossification tests are only supplementary and cannot override valid documents,” the Court observed.
The Supreme Court also pointed out that even though the JJB had done a preliminary assessment under Section 15 and recommended that the juvenile be tried as an adult, this did not affect his legal right to bail. There was no evidence to suggest that releasing him on bail would be a risk to society or himself.
Case Title: RAJNI VERSUS STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH & ANR.
Appearance:
For Petitioner(s): Ms. Amita Singh Kalkal, AOR Mr. Devvrat Pradhan, Adv. Ms. Aditi Gupta, Adv. Mr. Prashant Kumar, Adv.
For Respondent(s) : (For Resp.No.1 In Item No.12) : Mr. Abhinav Rathi, Adv. Dr. Vijendra Singh, AOR Mr. Deepak Goel, Adv. Mr. Shailesh Sharma, Adv.
(For Resp.No.2 In Item No.12) Mr. Anil K Sharma, Adv. Mr. Shivendu Gaur, Adv. Mr. Praveen Chaturvedi, AOR
