Lata And Another vs State Of U.P. And 4 Others
2021 Latest Caselaw 1222 ALL

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 

?Court No. - 40
 

 
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 1212 of 2020
 

 
Appellant :- Lata And Another
 
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others
 
Counsel for Appellant :- Virendra Singh,Indra Kumar Singh
 
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Anoop Kumar Mishra
 

 
Hon'ble Munishwar Nath Bhandari,J.

Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.

The appeal is directed against the judgment dated 10.11.2020, whereby, habeas corpus petition was disposed of.

It was a case where a habeas corpus petition was filed alleging illegal detention of Lata. The Court passed an order to record the statement of detenue and to send it throughthe Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kanpur Dehat. In pursuant to the order, the statement of detenue, Lata was recorded and sent to the Court. The detenue affirmed her marriage with Hari Om. The age of the detenue at the relevant time was less than 17 years. It was after taking into consideration the date of birth as 10.10.2003. The detenue shown her reservation to go with the parents, thus, the Court passed an order to send the detenue Government Children Home (Girl), Kanpur Dehat until she attains the age of majority. Visit of the petitioner-appellant was permitted.

Learned counsel for the appellants submits that the detenue was major as per the medical certificate, thus, she should not have been sent to the Children Home (Girl). She should have set free to go with her husband, Hari Om.

The learned Single Judge has given credence to the school certificate ignoring the medical. The prayer is accordingly to set aside the judgment of learned Single Judge.

We have considered the submissions made by learned counsel for the appellants and find argument to be in conflict with Section 94 of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. For determination of age of a child, the preference is to be given to the educational certificate and if it is not available then only credence can be given to the medical certificate.

In the instance case, the educational certificate could not have been ignored by the learned Single Judge and as per the educational documents, the detenue had not attained the age of majority.

In view of above and as per the Act of 2015, detenue was rightly sent to the Children Home (Girl), Kanpur Dehat.

Accordingly, we do not find any reason to cause interference in the judgment passed by the learned Single Judge.

In the result, appeal fails and is dismissed.

Order Date :- 20.1.2021

V.S.Singh