“Birth date in school certificate valid enough” - Supreme Court!

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J. Venkatesan, The Hindu / NEW DELHI, August 7, 2011.

The Supreme Court has held that in determining the age of an accused to find out whether he is a juvenile or not, a hyper-technical approach should not be adopted by the trial courts. Instead, they should treat the date of birth in the School Leaving Certificate as valid proof, a Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan said.

“If two views may be possible on the same evidence, the court should lean in favour of holding the accused to be juvenile in borderline cases,” the Bench said.

Writing the judgment, Justice Sathasivam pointed that the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Rules specifically says: “The matriculation or equivalent certificates, if available; and in the absence whereof, the date of birth certificate from the school first attended and in the absence whereof, the birth certificate given by a corporation or a municipal authority or a panchayat.”

Full Story at,

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2331412.ece