The bleeding teenager at Kotwali: age claim, lock-up and counter-case
On 12 August at 21:40 a shopkeeper and two of his employees bring a bleeding teenage boy to the Kotwali police station. They say he was caught stealing two mobile chargers worth ₹1,400 from the counter and that they 'taught him a lesson' before bringing him in. The SHO and both sub-inspectors are away on law-and-order duty at a political rally; you are the senior-most constable present. The boy has a two-centimetre cut above the left eye, refuses to give his name, and says he is 17 and studies in class 11. The shopkeeper demands that you lock him up for the night and 'settle the matter in the morning'. The station lock-up already holds four under-trial prisoners. The boy says the phone in the shopkeeper's pocket is his uncle's; the shopkeeper says it is case property. The Childline number is pinned on the notice board.
1. List, in order, what you must do in the first two hours and the legal basis for each step.
Read the worked answer
- Record before acting. Enter in the general diary the exact time of arrival, who brought the boy, and the visible injury. Every later allegation - that he was beaten in custody, that he was a child, that he was held overnight - will be tested against this entry, so it must exist before you touch the case.
- Medical examination at once. A person in custody with a visible injury must be examined by a medical officer (S.54 CrPC / the corresponding BNSS, 2023 provision, and the D.K. Basu guidelines). The injury report protects the boy and protects you.
- Do not use the lock-up. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 (S.10 with the Model Rules) bars keeping a child alleged to be in conflict with law in a police lock-up; he must go to an observation home and be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board within 24 hours. The four under-trial prisoners already inside make an exception even less defensible.
- Record the age claim in writing immediately, because juvenility is decided on documents (matriculation certificate first, then birth certificate) and any doubt is resolved in the child's favour.
- Inform the parents/guardian under Article 22(1) and the D.K. Basu guidelines, and alert Childline.
- Register a case against the shopkeeper and his employees for voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful confinement (BNS, 2023 equivalents) and seize the phone by seizure memo - it is case property in both cases.
- Inform the SHO and the probation officer.
2. The shopkeeper argues that a thief forfeits his rights and that no case can be made against them for the beating. Evaluate this claim.
Read the worked answer
The claim is wrong on two independent grounds. First, the right of private defence of property is protective, not punitive: it lasts only while the theft is being committed or resisted, and it must be proportionate to the threat. Once the boy was overpowered and the chargers recovered, the threat ended and the right ended with it; what followed was retribution, which is voluntarily causing hurt. Second, the right of private defence is never available for punishing a suspected offender - punishment belongs to the courts. Nor does the allegation of theft erase the boy's own protections: he is simultaneously a child in conflict with law and a victim of assault, and both tracks run in parallel. The demand to 'settle the matter in the morning' is also not something a police station can do - compounding requires the parties to apply to a court, and no officer can bargain it at the counter. Record the shopkeeper's demand in the diary, because it shows an attempt to pressurise the investigation.
3. The observation home is 40 km away, no vehicle is free until 06:00, and the lock-up has a spare cell. Can the boy be kept there overnight? Justify your answer.
Read the worked answer
No. The bar on keeping a child in a police lock-up is absolute and does not bend to a transport problem; distance is an administrative difficulty, not a legal excuse, and 'we had no vehicle' is exactly the entry a magisterial inquiry will seize on. The correct course is: (i) telephone Childline and the probation officer that night and ask them to arrange transport or a safe place; (ii) approach the nearest available vehicle - the ambulance, the mobile patrol, or a requisitioned private vehicle - and record the attempts, with times; (iii) until transport is arranged, keep the boy in a separate room outside the lock-up, in the presence of a responsible officer, with the medical officer's advice followed; (iv) note every step in the diary; (v) inform the Juvenile Justice Board and ensure production within 24 hours of taking custody. If transport is genuinely unobtainable before dawn, the answer is still not the lock-up - it is more calls, more entries, and a written report to the SHO.