FIR Against Juvenile For Petty Offence Unsustainable Under JJ Act: Karnataka High Court Quashes Case

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday (February 03) quashed an FIR against an accused who was stated to be a juvenile at the time of registration of the crime, noting that offence alleged against him was a petty offence under Juvenile Justice Act and thus FIR could not have been registered against him. 

Justice M Nagaprasanna was hearing the petitioner's plea who had challenged the registration of a 2023 FIR under IPC Sections 341 (wrongful restraint),323 (punishment for voluntarily causing simple hurt), 324 (Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 506 (criminal intimidation), 354(B) (Assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 34 (common intention) registered against various accused including petitioner, and consequent filing of chargesheet.

The counsel for petitioner submitted that the police did not have jurisdiction to register an FIR against petitioner, as he was at the time of incident and registration of FIR, 17 years and 8 months old and had to be tried under Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act and not for offences under IPC in the normal way. 

He referred to chargesheet and said that the only offence against the petitioner, then and now both, is that he had cause injury by hitting a stone on the complainant's head. Therefore the only offence that can be alluded is Section 324 IPC.

The counsel for the State said that the bar for registration of FIR under JJ Act, does not relate to offences that are not heinous and therefore the police was within its jurisdiction to register FIR against juvenile and continue the investigation and file a chargesheet. In so far as merit is concerned the Special Public Prosecutor submitted that it is a matter of trial for petitioner to come out clean.

Counsel for petitioner said that the provision is very clear as to the bar on registration of FIR in certain circumstances, and the circumstance is that the alleged offence is a petty offence and not a heinous offence and so prosecution could not registered an FIR against petitioner in particular who was a juvenile at that particular point of time. 

SPP said that if that be so, the FIR be transferred to Juvenile Police Unit and the unit must be permitted to continue the proceedings. The counsel for the petitioner said that the petitioner a juvenile at the time of occurrence of the crime, could not be tried as an adult for the offences mentioned in the FIR. 

"The JJ Act defines what is a heinous offence and a petty offence. Heinous offence is one which has punishment of 7 years or more on the date of commission of offence. Petty offence on contrary would be an offence punishable with imprisonment upto 3 years," the court said. 

The court referred to the relevant rules under the JJ Act and said that Rule 8 mandates that no FIR shall be registered except where a heinous offence is alleged to have been committed by a child or where an offence is alleged to have been committed jointly with adults. The court said that the allegation against the petitioner is that he took  a stone and hit on the left side of the head of the complainant. 

It said that this can only be an offence under Section 324 IPC. Referring to the provision which is punishable with imprisonment upto three years the court said:

"Therefore it is a case where it could be classified as petty offence under JJ Act. If it is a petty offence crime could not have been registered by the police. It ought to have been before JJ police unit or child welfare office. Since petitioner was admittedly a juvenile at the time of the crime...date of birth being 10-4-2005, the incident was 17-3-2023 the petitioner was admittedly 17 years 8 months therefore was a juvenile...I deem it appropriate to obliterate proceedings against this petitioner, with liberty to prosecution to transmit matetr to juvenile police unit to continue the investigation..."

The court allowed the petition and quashed the FIR, with liberty reserved with the prosecution to place the papers of the FIR with the juvenile police unit. 

Case title: X v/s STATE OF KARNATAKA

CRL.P 6143/2023