In Juvenile “X”, through His Natural Guardian His Father Namely, Ashok Mistry @ Ashok Mistri vs. The State of Bihar (2024) which was adjudicated along with 24 similar cases from Gaya, Rohtas, Patna, Aurangabad, Supaul, East Champaran, West Champaran, Kaimur, Katihar, Vaishali, Banka, Saran, Muzaffarpur and Sitamarhi, Justice Bibek Chaudhuri of the High Court had delivered a 33-page long judgement wherein he underlined that Juvenile Justice Boards (JJBs) and the Courts of Appeal cannot deal with the applications for bail and connected appeals on the consideration that the offences committed by the petitioners are heinous offences.
Justice Chaudhuri concluded: "Both the Boards and the Courts of Appeal must be free from this mind set that an application for bail of CICL cannot be rejected on the ground of heinous offence. At the same time, the Board and the Courts of Appeal shall remain alive to impose conditions for bail in the manner through which the future of CICL is protected. He may be kept under the supervision and guidance of a proper person so that he may not come in association of known criminals or that the order of bail expose him to moral, physical or psychological danger or it will defeat ends of justice. For the reasons stated above, I am inclined to allow these batch of revision on contest. The petitioners / CICLs shall be released on bail....."
Justice Chaudhuri's direction reads:"Let a copy of this judgement be transmitted by the Registry of this Court to all the District Judges within two weeks for circulation to all the Juvenile Justice Boards and Children’s Courts, constituted under the said Act (Act 2 of 2016) for their appraisal as to the mode and manner and the factual and legal consideration while granting or rejecting a prayer for bail or connected Appeal under the said Act. Office is directed to send the email of this order to the respective Courts."
He drew on the decision of a Co-ordinate Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Juvenile X through his father vs. State of U. P. and Anr., reported in 2021 SCC Online All 1091, which had succinctly dealt with the requirement to be followed by the Probation Officer while filing Social Investigation Report. The relevant paragraph 19 of the judgement reads: "‘Form-6’ of The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016, contains a detailed proforma of the social investigation report. The report has three parts; the first part requires the Probation Officer to give the data or information regarding the close relatives in the family, delinquency records of the family, social and economic status, ethical code of the family, attitude towards religion, relationship amongst the family members, the relationship with the parents, living conditions etc. Thereafter, the report requires the Probation Officer to provide the child's history regarding his mental condition, physical condition, habits, interests, personality traits, neighbourhood, neighbours’ report, and school, employment, if any, friends, the child being subject to any form of abuse, circumstances of apprehension of the child, mental condition of the child. The most important part of the report is the third part i.e. the result of inquiry where the Probation Officer is required to inform the Board about the emotional factors, physical condition, intelligence, social and economic factors, suggestive cause of the problems, analysis of the case including reasons/contributing factors for the offence, opinion of experts consulted and recommendation regarding rehabilitation by the Probation Officer/Child Welfare Officer. It is incumbent upon the Juvenile Justice Board to take into consideration the social investigation report and make an objective assessment of the reasonable grounds for rejecting the bail application of the juvenile.” Justice Chaudhary inadvertently referred to para 23 instead of para 19 of the Allahabad High Court's judgement dated October 1, 2024 in Criminal Revision No. 611 of 2023.
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