Allahabad High Court
Beerendra Singh vs State Of U.P. And Another on 6 October, 2025
Author: Siddharth
Bench: Siddharth
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:176126
Reserved On:-18.09.2025 Delivered On:-06.10.2025
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
CRIMINAL REVISION No. - 1257 of 2025
Beerendra Singh
.....Revisionist(s)
Versus
State of U.P. and Another
.....Opposite Party(s)
Counsel for Revisionist(s)
:
Jitendra Pal Singh Jadaun, Seema Singh Jadaun
Counsel for Opposite Party(s)
:
G.A., S.P.S. Chauhan
In Chamber
HON'BLE SIDDHARTH, J.
1. Sri Jitendra Pal Singh Jadaun, learned counsel for revisionist; Sri S.P.S. Chauhan, learned counsel for opposite party no.2; learned AGA for State-respondent and perused the trial court record.
2. The present criminal revision has been filed against the judgment and order dated 04.01.2025 passed by the Addl. District and Sessions Judge (POCSO) Court No. 2, Aligarh, in Criminal Appeal No. 118 of 2024, Ajay Kumar Vs. State of U.P., and another allowing the criminal appeal and declaring the opposite party no.2 as juvenile and setting aside the order dated 23.07.2024 passed by Juvenile Justice Board, Aligarh, in Misc. Case No. 2331/2023, under sections 363, 302, 201 and 376-D of I.P.C. and Section 5/6 of POCSO Act, Police Station- Khair, District- Aligarh, rejecting claim of juvenility of opposite party no.2.
3. An application was made by father of the respondent no.2 claiming that the date of birth of opposite party no.2 is 01.01.2007 and, therefore, on the date of incident dated 06.08.2023, he was juvenile aged about 16 years, 7 months and 5 days and he may be declared juvenile. The father of opposite party no.2 appeared as C.W.-1 before the Board and stated that he got married 34 years ago and has four sons and a daughter. Elder sons are aged about 30 years, 26 years and 21 years respectively and respondent no.2 is his 4th son who is only aged about sixteen an a half years. He has studied from class 1 to class 10th in Kapoori Devi Inter College, Shivala, Aligarh, and is now studying in class-11th. All his children were born at home. He did not got birth certificate of any of his child issued.
4. C.W.-2, Assistant Clerk, of the aforesaid college appeared with record before the court and proved that the opposite party no.2 was admitted in his college in class-6th. He was admitted in his college on the basis of his earlier studies in Adarsh Prathmik Vidyalaya, Shivala, Khair. His date of birth recorded is 01.01.2007 in the school record. He has studied from class-5th to class 10th in his college and has not got the transfer certificate issued. He passed class-10th examination in the year 2023.
5. C.W.-3, Assistant Teacher, of the Adarsh Prathmik Vidyalaya, aforesaid proved that the opposite party no.2 was admitted in his school on 01.07.2014 in class 2nd. He was admitted on the basis of result of test. At that time his date of birth was informed by his father as 01.01.2007.
6. C.W.-4, Principal of Sant Sri Vivekanand Public School, Shiavala Khurd, Aligarh, proved that the opposite party no.2 was student in his school from class 2nd to class 4th. He got admitted in class-2nd on 01.04.2015 and his date of birth was recorded as 05.07.2009. Transfer certificate was issued by his school on 15.03.2024. The Juvenile Justice Board, found two dates of birth of opposite party no.2 viz., 01.01.2007 and 05.07.2009 and directed ossification test of the opposite party no.2. As per the ossification test report dated 19.07.2024 his age was found to be between 21-22 years and on the date of incident he was found to be aged about 20 years. Therefore, his claim of juvenility was rejected by the Juvenile Justice Board.
7. On appeal the appellate court allowed the claim of the opposite party no.2 and declared him aged about 16 years and 7 months on the basis of date of birth of 01.07.2007 recorded in his high school certificate.
8. Learned counsel for the revisionist has challenged the order of the Children's Court on the basis of the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Sanjeev Kumar Gupta Vs. State of U.P. and another passed in Criminal Appeal No. 1081 of 2019, wherein the Apex Court has held that where the high school certificate is not supported by underlying documents, the date of birth recorded therein cannot be accepted as the correct date of birth of the child. He has submitted that from the own evidence of the opposite party no.2, led before the Board, two dates of birth came on record viz., 01.01.2007 and 05.07.2009. It was incumbent upon the respondent no.2 to prove which of his date of birth was correct. Initially educational document of the revisionist from class 2 to 4 proved that his date of birth was 05.07.2009 which was changed in later to 01.01.2007 in the subsequent classes and in the high school certificate. Therefore, the high school certificate of opposite party no. 2 was not based on correct underlying documents.
9. In view of the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Sanjeev Kumar Gupta (Supra), the order of the Children's Court cannot be sustained and is hereby set aside.
10. The judgment and order of the Juvenile Justice Board is upheld.
11. The revision is allowed.
(Siddharth,J.)
October 6, 2025
Abhishek
