1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN, JAIPUR BENCH, JAIPUR. JUDGMENT Aarif Vs. State of Rajasthan (S.B. Criminal Misc. Petition No.2092/2010) S.B. Criminal Misc. Petition Under Section 482 Cr.P.C. Date of Judgment: November 10, 2010 PRESENT HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE R.S. CHAUHAN Mr.M.K. Kaushik, for the petitioner. Mr.N.R. Saran, Public Prosecutor. BY THE COURT: An extremely limited prayer has been made before this Court for directing the Additional District and Sessions Judge No.2, Deeg, District Bharatpur, to dispose of the criminal Appeal No.9/10, entitled Aarif Vs. State of Rajasthan, within a period of one month. The brief facts of the case are that on 01.07.2010 a FIR, FIR No.235/2010, was lodged at Police Station, Nagar for offences under Section 394 IPC against the petitioner. On 27.07.2010, the petitioner was arrested. The petitioner moved an application before the learned Magistrate praying therein that he be declared as a Juvenile. Vide order dated 23.10.2010, the learned Magistrate rejected the application and declared the 2 petitioner as minor. Against the order dated 23.10.2010, the petitioner preferred a criminal appeal before the learned Judge. On 29.10.2010, the learned Judge while issuing the notice, fixed the next date as 8.12.2010. Since the petitioner is aggrieved by the inordinate long date that has been given by the learned Judge, therefore, this petition before this Court. Mr. Azad Ahmed, the learned counsel for the petitioner, has contended that it is imperative that the age of an offender be decided as soon as possible. Therefore, the inordinate long date is clearly unjustified. Moreover, such a long date violets the fundamental rights of the petitioner under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. On the other hand, Mr. N.R. Saran, the learned Public Prosecutor, has contended that the learned Judge is certainly justified in assigning a long date due to the pressure of work being faced by the courts. Heard the learned counsel for the parties. The courts are expected to be sensitive to the needs of the people. When a question about 3 the age of an offender has been raised and it is contended that the offender may be a juvenile, it is imperative that the question of his age be decided at the earliest. Therefore, the learned Judge is certainly unjustified in assigning a long date. Thus, this Court directs the learned Additional District and Sessions Judge No.2, Deeg, District Bharatpur, to decide the issue about the age of the petitioner as soon as possible and preferably within a period of three weeks from today. With these observation, this petition is allowed. (R.S. CHAUHAN) J. Manoj solanki