Jaipur Blasts 2008 : Supreme Court Refuses To Interfere With Rajasthan HC Order Declaring One Accused Juvenile As On Date Of Occurrence

Recently, the Supreme Court (on December 08) dismissed a Special Leave Petition filed by the State of Rajasthan against the Rajasthan High Court's order, which declared that one of the convicts in the 2008 Jaipur bomb blasts case a Juvenile on the date of occurrence. While doing so, the High Court had set aside the order of the Sessions Judge and affirmed the Juvenile Justice Board's decision to declare the convict as a juvenile. 

In the Supreme Court, a bench comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Sudhanshu Dhulia refused to interfere with the High Court judgment. In view of this, the appeal was dismissed. 

On May 13, 2008, several explosions took place in Jaipur, resulting in the death of 71 persons and injuries to 185 persons. This year, in March, one of the accused, named Mohammad Salman, was found to be a juvenile at the time of the offence by the High Court. It is against this order that the State of Rajasthan moved the Top Court. In a separate judgment, the High Court also acquitted Salman and three others, reversing the sentence of the death penalty passed against them by the trial court. The High Court also affirmed the trial court order acquitting the fifth accused in the case.  It may be noted that separate appeals filed by the State and the victims against the acquittal judgment are pending before the Supreme Court.

Salman had moved an application before the Trial Court for a determination of his age. The court held him to be over 18 years old. An appeal was filed on behalf of Salman before the Sessions Judge, who, in turn, directed the Juvenile Justice Board to decide the same application.

Juvenile Justice Board, after perusing the relevant documents and evidence, concluded that Salman was a juvenile in conflict with the law as of the date of the alleged Jaipur blast. When challenged, this order was set aside by the Sessions Judge. However, the High Court, by its impugned order, affirmed the order of the Board and declared the accused to be Juvenile.

“Juvenile Justice Board has not committed any illegality or error in determining the age of Salman and considering him to be a minor on the date of the alleged incident.,” held the High Court.

The High Court, after referring to evidence placed on record before the board, held that it is evident that Salman's date of birth was 09.02.1992. The same was true as per the records of the school he first attended.

“As per the same, in the admission form and school leaving form, the date of birth of Salman was mentioned as 09.02.1992. From perusal of the same, it is evident that he took admission on 02.07.1997 i.e. at the age of 5 years and studied till Class-VII and left the school on 28.04.2004.,” the Court explained.

Apart from this, the High Court did not consider the medical evidence presented by the State was considered. This was because the matriculation certificate and the document of date of birth mentioned in the school first attended were available.

“The contention of learned Additional Advocate General that from the medical evidence, it is evident that Salman was around 19 years of age at the time of alleged bomb blasts cannot be considered for the sole reason that the medical evidence can only be looked into when the matriculation certificate or school first attended or the municipal certificate with regard to the date of birth is not available as held by Apex Court in Ashwani Kumar Saxena Versus State of MPI.”

Against this backdrop, the Court upheld the order passed by the Juvenile Justice Board.

"In view of the same, we are of the considered view that the learned Sessions Judge has committed grave illegality in allowing the appeal filed by the State. We thus, set aside the order passed by the learned Sessions Judge and the order passed by the Juvenile Justice Board is upheld. Petitioner - Salman is thus, considered to be a juvenile on the date of occurrence of Jaipur bomb blast."

Case Title: State of Rajasthan v. Mohd. Salman., Diary No(s). 25547/2023

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