Death row teen was 15 at crime. Supreme Court: free him now.

He was on death row for two years. Then a school certificate from 2002 changed everything. On a March morning in 2023, the Supreme Court of India ordered the immediate release of a young man who had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a minor girl — not because he was innocent, but because he was fifteen years, four months, and twenty days old when the crime was committed.

Could a person convicted of the most serious crimes walk free simply because of his age? The answer, the court said, lies in a single question: was he a child when the offence happened? If yes, the death sentence vanishes — and so does every day of imprisonment beyond three years.

December 2017: the crime that earned a death sentence

A minor girl was raped and murdered in Madhya Pradesh. Karan — also known as Fatiya — was arrested, tried, and convicted by a Sessions Court on 17 May 2018. The charges were staggering: kidnapping under Section 363 IPC, rape under Section 376(2)(i) IPC, murder under Section 302 IPC, and destruction of evidence under Section 201 IPC. He was also convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. The trial court sentenced him to death. The court record, thick with evidence and testimony, was read out in a packed courtroom — the judge's voice flat, the accused standing in the dock, the silence broken only by the rustle of paper.

Karan appealed to the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Bench at Indore. On 15 November 2018, the High Court dismissed his appeal and confirmed the death sentence. The bench's order came down in a single, flat pronouncement — the sound of a judgment copy being closed, its weight settling on the record. He was now on death row — waiting, like every condemned prisoner, for the final confirmation from the Supreme Court. The cell door clanged shut, and the days stretched into a grey, endless routine.

But during the pendency of his appeal before the Supreme Court — filed as Criminal Appeal Nos. 572-573 of 2019 — Karan raised a claim that had not been pressed earlier: he said he was a juvenile — a child below sixteen years — on the date of the offence in December 2017.

The school certificate that became a lifeline

The Supreme Court did not dismiss the claim. Instead, it directed the Trial Court to conduct an age inquiry under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 — the provision that lays down a strict hierarchy for determining age. First priority goes to the matriculation or equivalent certificate. If that is unavailable, the school birth certificate from a government school takes precedence. Only if neither document exists can a medical test — the ossification test (a bone X-ray used to estimate age) — be used.

The Trial Court — the Court of First Additional Sessions Judge, Manawar, District Dhar, Madhya Pradesh — examined the evidence on 27 October 2022. It found a government primary school certificate showing Karan's date of birth as 25 July 2002. The ink on the certificate had faded to a pale blue, but the date was still legible: 25.07.2002. Teachers from the school testified to confirm the record. The court conclusively determined that on the date of the offence in December 2017, Karan was fifteen years, four months, and twenty days old.

The State of Madhya Pradesh asked for an ossification test to challenge this finding. The Trial Court rejected the request. The school record was available, the State had not objected during the inquiry, and under Section 94 of the JJ Act, a medical test is only permitted when documentary proof is missing. The courtroom fell into a hush as the judge read out the finding — the date of birth, the age, the consequence.

Conviction stands. Sentence vanishes.

Before the Supreme Court, the State argued that a person convicted of rape and murder should not be allowed to walk free. The court agreed on one point: the conviction itself was not affected. Under Section 9(3) of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, a trial conducted by a regular court does not become invalid just because the accused is later found to be a child. The conviction stands.

But the sentence, the court said, is a different matter entirely. Section 9(3) states that when a court finds a convicted person was a child on the date of the offence, any sentence passed "shall be deemed to have no effect." The death sentence, therefore, was legally meaningless. The bench — Justice B.R. Gavai, Justice Vikram Nath, and Justice Sanjay Karol — sat in composed stillness as the order was read, the words falling like a hammer: "The sentence of death shall be deemed to have no effect."

The court then turned to Section 18 of the JJ Act, which prescribes the maximum punishment for a child in conflict with the law. For a child below sixteen years who commits a heinous offence — the category that includes rape and murder — the maximum permissible sentence is three years in a special home. Karan had already spent more than five years in custody. Every day beyond three years was illegal.

The Bench Reads the Order: Sentence Deemed to Have No Effect

The State also invoked Section 25 of the JJ Act, which deals with pending cases. The court clarified that this provision does not allow a regular court to impose an adult sentence on a child. The scheme of the Act is clear: once juvenility is established, the child must be sent to the Juvenile Justice Board for appropriate orders, and the maximum period of detention is capped.

The Supreme Court relied on a series of precedents — each reinforcing the same principle. In Jitendra Singh alias Babbco Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the court held that the claim of juvenility can be raised at any stage, even after final conviction. In Mahesh v. State of Rajasthan, the court clarified that the benefit of the JJ Act applies regardless of the gravity of the offence. Satya Deo alias Bhoorey v. State of Uttar Pradesh established that school records under Section 94 take precedence over medical tests. Raju v. State of Haryana and Ashok Kumar Mehra v. State of Punjab both held that a child cannot be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. And Ashwani Kumar Saxena laid down the procedural framework for age determination — the court must follow the statutory hierarchy strictly. Each of these judgments, cited in the court's reasoning, reinforced the same principle: age at the time of the crime is the only relevant date.

The bench — Justice B.R. Gavai, Justice Vikram Nath, and Justice Sanjay Karol — held that the death sentence had no effect in law. The conviction for the offences under the IPC and POCSO Act was maintained, but the punishment was wiped out. Since Karan had already served more than the maximum three years, the court ordered his immediate release. The order, cited as 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 159, was crisp and final: "The appellant is directed to be released forthwith."

THE PLAY: If a client was a child on the date of the offence, raise the juvenility claim at the earliest stage — and if school records exist, an ossification test cannot override them under Section 94 of the JJ Act.

The school certificate that undid a death sentence

The case turns on a single document: a government primary school certificate from 2002. It was filed, examined, and accepted. It proved that Karan was fifteen when the crime happened. And because the law treats children differently from adults — even children who commit the most terrible acts — the death sentence could not survive.

The court ended where it began: with a school certificate and a date of birth. The faded ink on that paper, the testimony of teachers who remembered a boy in a classroom, the silence in the courtroom when the finding was read — all of it converged into a single legal truth: a child cannot be executed, no matter what he has done.