Staines murder-accused appeals against sentence

A two-judge bench comprising additonal Chief Judicial Magistratecum Principal Magistrate Sukumar Sahu and SDJM Gajendra Mohapatra found Chenchu guilty of the murder at Manoharpur village of Keonjhar district on January 22 last year and convicted him.

Chenchu, being a juvenile and one of the 18 accused in the murder case, was tried separately.

Chenchu’s counsel Gyana Acharya moved the petition stating that the sentence passed by the bench was not backed by any provision of the law and the lower court had no jurisdiction to pass the impugned order under the Juvenile Justice Act. The bench, he further said, had no power to send the juvenile for 14 years in a juvenile home.

The counsel maintained that the order of conviction and sentence passed by the bench was unjust, arbitrary and not backed by any provison of law.

Acharaya further alleged that the judgement could not be treated as a legal order as the juvenile court had not been constituted as required under Section 5 of the Juvenile Justice Act.

He further stated that the appellant should be given benefit of doubt as his name did not figure in the FIR .

There was also no evidence to show that the appellant was present at the spot during the incident, the petition said.

The lower court should have taken into consideration the fact that chargesheet was filed against Chenchu though his name was not figured in the FIR.

The counsel also took strong objection to the observation of the bench that the remand of Chenchu to a special home would not be in the interest of other juveniles. He said Chenchu was neither a hardened criminal nor a professional murderer and there was no record which showed that he had a criminal bacground.