{1} IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO.211 OF 2010 Vinod s/o Subhash Pardesh PETITIONER Age-Major, Occ-Nil R/o Patan, Tq-Shindkheda, Dist-Dhule VERSUS The State of Maharashtra RESPONDENT ....... Mr.P.V.Suryawanshi, Advocate for the petitioner (Appointed) Mr.N.R.Shaikh, APP for respondent State ....... [CORAM : P.V.HARDAS, AND A.V.POTDAR, J.J.] DATE : 6th October 2010 ORAL JUDGMENT (PER P.V.HARDAS, J.): 1. A communication sent by the petitioner, through jail, has been registered as Criminal Writ Petition. We had accordingly appointed advocate Mr.P.V.Suryawanwhi, learned counsel, to represent the petitioner in this petition before us. 2. Limited grievance of the petitioner is that despite confirmation of his conviction by this Court, in appeal, the petitioner deserves to be released on the ground that the petitioner was juvenile on the date of the commission of the alleged offence. {2} 3. It appears that the Division Bench of this Court had issued Rule on 04.05.2010. Ultimately, when this petition came up for hearing before the Division Bench of this Court, finding that the issue of the date of birth of the petitioner was required to be adjudicated upon and decided, the Division Bench had directed the Juvenile Justice Board to determine the age of the petitioner on the date of the commission of the offence and to submit its report to this Court. Accordingly, the report has been submitted by the Juvenile Justice Board on 18th September 2010. The report, in no uncertain terms, states that opportunity of leading evidence was given to the petitioner and after examination of 3 witnesses, the Board came to the conclusion that there was no reason to disbelieve the oral and documentary evidence pertaining to the birth date of the petitioner. The Board further held that after taking into consideration the evidence, the date of birth of the petitioner is 1st June 1979 and since the offence was alleged to have been committed on 30.06.1996, the petitioner was 17 years and one month old on the date of commission of the offence. 4. In the light of the report of the Juvenile Justice Board, which clearly establishes that the petitioner was aged 17 years and one month when the offence alleged to have been committed, in other words was below age of 18 years, the petitioner would be entitled to be released forthwith though he has been held guilty of the commission of the offence by dismissing of his appeal, by this {3} Court. 5. In the result, therefore, this petition succeeds and the respondents are directed to forthwith release the petitioner from jail, if not wanted in any other case. We quantify the fees payable to the learned counsel appointed on behalf of the petitioner at Rs. 1,500/-. Rule is thus made absolute on the terms indicated above. [A.V.POTDAR, J.] [P.V.HARDAS, J.] drp/B10/cwp211-10