Why Rajasthan High Court called for erasure of criminal records of juveniles in minor cases

The Rajasthan High Court recently opined that a mechanism must be devised in the juvenile justice system to expunge the records of minor offences committed by the youth..Justice Arun Monga said such an approach will enable easier rehabilitation of juvenile offenders and also prevent youthful mistakes from becoming lifelong barriers to their personal and professional growth.“Youth need a reformative approach to the indiscretions committed in heat of the moment, which may or may not be intentional. Societal and so should the legal perspective be, of course depending upon the nature of delinquency, that youthful indiscretions should not permanently tarnish an individual’s future,” the Court stressed..It added that a compassionate and reformative approach ought to be adopted when dealing with young individuals who may have committed minor transgressions.“Young people, particularly in their late teens and early twenties, are still in the process of emotional and intellectual development. At this stage, they often act impulsively, sometimes making decisions that are not well thought out. A punitive approach that permanently brands young individuals as criminals for relatively minor mistakes contradicts the principles of justice/fairness, recidivism and reformation and reintegration into society,” the Court observed..The Court was dealing with the case of a 28-year-old who was held ineligible for appointment as a police officer due to his criminal background. He was a juvenile when two FIRs were registered against him and just above 18 when a third case was registered.It found that the petitioner had already been cleared of the charges in the cases registered against him when he was a student and thus he had answered ‘no’ to a question seeking to know whether the candidate was an ex-prisoner.“In my view, rightly so. He had no reason to believe by any stretch of imagination to treat himself either as a convict or a prisoner once he was acquitted by the competent court and the said acquittal had attained finality. Therefore, there is no concealment and/or mis-representation or over-statement on his part, be it overt and covert. It was only when his candidature was rejected that he came to know of the earlier FIRs being the reason qua the same,” the single-judge said..On the State’s view that he had been acquitted on the ground of benefit of doubt in view of compromise, the Court said,“There is no such finding as to the allegations attributed to him and/or the offences or role attributed to him being of such nature so as to impede the nature of duty to be performed by him or the same bordering moral turpitude, in any manner.”.The Court underscored that mere registration of an FIR does not reduce a citizen to the status of either a convict or not having a good character. It added that the role attributable to the petitioner was not of such nature as to either impinge on the nature of the duties to be performed by him or even border on moral turpitude.It further called upon the authorities to keep in mind the principle of proportionality since not all offences are of the same gravity. Minor indiscretions should not be equated with serious crimes, it said.“In the instant case, in one of the FIRs (168 of 2015), when the petitioner was not a juvenile, though section 307 of IPC was also invoked, but the High Court quashed the entire criminal proceedings arising therefrom, including the FIR itself. The same has to be thus treated as if the FIR never existed,” it added.Considering the findings, the Court directed the authorities to pass appropriate orders for the petitioner’s appointment as Sub-Inspector. Last year, the Court had ordered that a post be kept vacant for him during the pendency of the case..Advocates Sanjay Nahar and Sandeep Kumar represented the petitioner.Additional Advocate General BL Bhati and Advocate Sandeep Soni represented the State.[Read Judgment]