IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH Criminal Revision No.2436 of 2008 Date of Decision: November 20, 2008 Mumtaz Khan .....PETITIONER(S) VERSUS State of Punjab .....RESPONDENT(S) . . . CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAI LAMBA PRESENT: - Ms. G.K. Mann, Advocate, for the petitioner. . . . AJAI LAMBA, J (Oral) Challenge in this petition is to order dated 4.11.2008 whereby an application moved by the petitioner who is an accused of committing offence under Sections 363, 366, 376, 342, 506 IPC, for declaring him juvenile has been dismissed while taking into account the facts:- (a) Occurrence took place on 31.3.2004 and FIR was lodged on 22.7.2004. Challan was presented and charge was framed against the petitioner on 7.2.2005. The petitioner did not raise any objection in regard to his status. The petitioner at the stage of framing of charge did not assert or plead that he was juvenile; (b) Prosecution evidence was closed on 11.1.2007 and statement of the petitioner-accused was recorded under Crl. Rev. No.2436 of 2008 [2] Section 313 Cr.P.C. The petitioner himself gave his age as 25 years and the case was adjourned for defence evidence; (c) The petitioner filed an application for transfer of the case to Juvenile Court claiming his age to be less than 18 years. The application was opposed and prosecution stated that the petitioner was 25 years of age. The petitioner-accused gave his statement that the application be dismissed as withdrawn. The matter thereafter was adjourned for defence evidence for 8.7.2007 and then for 19.7.2007. It is only on 1.8.2007, the application has again been filed asserting that the petitioner was juvenile. The issue has been considered by the Trial Court. It transpires that the application had been made by the petitioner by way of an application dated 9.7.2007 to enter his date of birth in the record. No order was passed by any officer to make entry of date of birth in the record. Reliance was also placed on Parivar Register, however, the Court below has found that none of the pages in the Register bears the stamp of Gram Panchayat and it is not signed by any officer who made the relevant entries in the record. In view of this, no credence could be attached to the document relied upon by the petitioner. It has also been observed that while the occurrence took place on 31.3.2004, the petitioner got managed an entry in birth register issued on 11.7.2007 by filing an application on 9.7.2007 on the basis of Crl. Rev. No.2436 of 2008 [3] entry of Parivar Register which has been held to be suspicious. In the face of such facts, the petitioner cannot derive any mileage from Surender V. State of Haryana, 2004(4) RCR (Criminal) 95 and Jitendra Ram @ Jitu V. State of Jharkhand, 2006(3) RCR (Criminal) 165. The assertion of the learned counsel that the issue of age can be raised at any point in time during the course of trial, is not in dispute, however, considering the facts and circumstances of the case as noticed above, no ground for interference is made out. I find no illegality in the impugned order. The petition is dismissed. (AJAI LAMBA) November 20, 2008 JUDGE avin