In a rare ruling, the Principal Magistrate of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) has transferred the case of a 16-year-old boy, accused of murder, to a regular criminal court where he will be tried as an adult. The move pertains to the death of 17-year-old Selvasurya, a Class 12 student at a government school in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, who died after an altercation on the basis of caste left him grievously injured over two months ago. The 16-year-old was arrested in the case along with two other Class 11 students of the same school, but only one of them will be tried as an adult.
It was on April 25 that the three students — one of whom is a Dalit — got into a clash with Selvasurya after the latter’s gang of friends reportedly asked the Dalit student why he was wearing a wrist band denoting caste. The fight had escalated with the victim and one of the accused throwing stones at each other, following which Selvasurya was hospitalised due to severe internal injuries and he died on April 30. The incident took place at Pallakkal Podhukudi Government Higher Secondary School in Tirunelveli.
In India, this is not the first case in which a juvenile is being tried as an adult. In fact, Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice Act allows the JJB to conduct a preliminary assessment on accused minors to know their mental and physical capacity to commit such crimes, their ability to understand the consequences of the offence, and the circumstances in which they allegedly committed the crime. The JJB consists of a Judicial Magistrate of the first class and two social workers, at least one of whom should be a woman.
The trial of the juvenile accused in the Selvasurya murder case was transferred to the designated district court based on three reports, as per protocol. First is the social background report, submitted by a Child Welfare Police Officer, reflecting the minor’s social and economic conditions. The next is the social investigation report, generally prepared by the Probation Officer, including information regarding the antecedents, family background and other material circumstances in which the offence was committed. The third is a psychological report submitted by a clinical psychologist/medical officer. It may be noted that a child in conflict with law (CCL) who is going to be tried as an adult can be awarded a maximum punishment of up to life imprisonment, whereas minor offenders can be sentenced for only up to three years.
Recently, when an 18-year-old and five other minors were arrested in the gang rape of a minor girl at Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad, the decision to treat only the 18-year-old as an adult had sparked widespread outrage, with many including activists demanding that all the accused should be treated as serious offenders and tried as adults.
In the Selvasurya murder case, the FIR noted that one teen had hurled the stone at the victim, while the rest of the accused verbally abused him and his friends. While leaving the school campus, they had also reportedly issued threats that they would pelt stones at him and kill him. It is learnt that even before the fatal clash, altercations have taken place between the accused gang and Selvasurya and his friends, which had escalated the situation. Though Selvasurya’s friends were also involved in the fight, so far only three teens have been arrested, of whom one will be treated as an adult in the trial.
TNM spoke to Josiah Rajan, the Probation Officer who submitted the accused’s social investigation report, to understand on what grounds the juvenile was being tried as an adult. "The Board first carried out a preliminary assessment, based on which the decision to treat a juvenile as an adult was made by the principal magistrate and other members of the JJB. The decision was not made based on my social investigation report alone. It could have been one of the reasons. But here, the main report is the psychological assessment from the Tirunelveli Medical College," said Josiah Rajan, who was posted at Tirunelveli when the incident happened. He is currently working at Ramanathapuram.
"My report concerned matters like the accused’s family background, how many children are there in his home, under what circumstances the boy was brought up, what circumstances led him to this case, how such events could have been avoided, what kind of rehabilitation could be given to him, whether he was facing any threats, etc,” Josiah explained.
A former child protection officer, who worked in the district for years, told TNM that as per the amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, minors who committed heinous crimes (that lead to a minimum punishment of seven years or more) can be tried as adults if they are over 16 years of age at the time of the crime. “These crimes can be anything from murder to rape or gangrape, but the gravity of an offence is determined on a case-to-case basis,” the officer said.
On the condition of anonymity, the officer also pointed out the issues they had with the way in which Selvasurya’s case was handled. “It was not just the three accused students who were involved in this clash. Selvasurya's friends were also there. What action has been taken against them? Why haven’t the circumstances that led to this situation been taken into consideration? How can one decide that one of the accused should be treated as an adult while the rest of them can be treated as juveniles if there was no motive to kill anyone? If you are asking me, the three should be allowed to go free. Because from what I have heard, it was Selvasurya's friends who started the issue. They had bullied one of the accused, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste, for wearing a caste band on his wrist,” the officer said.
Tamilvaanan, a Tirunelveli JJB member who is working with Judicial Magistrate Arumugam in the case, told TNM that the Board had received both the social background and investigation reports from the departments concerned, as well as a report from psychologists, based on which the decision was made. When asked if the pressure from the dominant caste group to which the victim belonged had influenced this decision, he said no such pressure had been put on the JJB.
According to the statement by Selvasurya’s mother, the victim was trying to placate the two clashing groups when one of the accused hurled stones at him. Two physical education teachers B Tamilselvam and A Sheeba Backiamary have been suspended from duty in connection with this case, as the incident took place inside the school campus. The three accused students have been booked under IPC sections 294(b) (obscene acts and songs), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons), and 506(2) (punishment for criminal intimidation).