Patna HC orders release of juvenile held in land dispute

The HC also directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to institute an inquiry into the matter in administrative side, take a suitable view based on the materials which would come in course of the inquiry proceeding

The Patna high court has directed that a juvenile unlawfully arrested in a land dispute case and languishing in jail since November 24, 2025 be released forthwith by the Juvenile Justice Board, Madhepura from the observation home/children’s home and paid ₹5 lakh as compensation.

The Patna high court in Patna. (Santosh Kumar/HT)

The court, in its order passed on Friday and uploaded on Sunday, also directed the Director General of Police, Bihar to institute an inquiry into the matter in administrative side, take a suitable view based on the materials which would come in course of the inquiry proceeding and realize a cost of ₹15,000 and the compensation amount from the erring officials within a period of six months.

The writ application had been filed in the nature of a Writ of Habeas Corpus seeking release of the petitioner from the illegal detention, alleging the investigating officer arrested the petitioner in complete disregard to the powers of arrest and without following the established procedure of law. He was arrested without even being charge-sheeted. Later, the report from the SP office also found the petitioner to be a juvenile aged about 15 years 6 months and 8 days on the date of occurrence.

“For his unlawful arrest and detention, we direct the State to pay a sum of ₹5 lakh as compensation keeping in view that a young boy who is a juvenile at this stage has undergone physical and mental agony for two and half months. The State Government shall pay this amount to the petitioner within a period of one month from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order,” said the bench of Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad.

The bench observed that the petitioner had been compelled to approach this court to contest the litigation which was imposed upon them “because of the misuse of power by the investigating agency and failure of the court to protect the right and liberty of the petitioner”.

“We have come to a conclusion that it is a case of unlawful arrest of the petitioner and in such a circumstance, this court being a Constitutional Court cannot remain a mute spectator,” the order said, citing various judgments of the apex court.

The case related to a land dispute in the village Sapardah of Madhepura. One side named 10 persons including the petitioner, accusing them of assault and loot of ornaments before the village panchayat. The petitioner’s mother also lodged a counter case.

During investigation, the IO found that there was no sufficient material to proceed against ten named accused persons including this petitioner and they were not charge-sheeted, though one arrest was made. However, later on the direction of DIG (Saharsa), the IO straightway proceeded to conduct a raid on the house of the accused persons and arrested the petitioner, described his age as 19 years and produced him before the court from where he was sent to jail.

“It appears that even at the time of his production, the attention of the Magistrate was not drawn towards the fact that the petitioner was shown in the column of not charge-sheeted accused in the chargesheet. Once the chargesheet had been filed in the court, it was incumbent upon the IO to file an application seeking further investigation of the case if at all any material had come against the petitioner,” the court observed.

The bench observed that “even the Magistrate did not look into these aspects and straightway in a mechanical manner sent the petitioner behind the bars”.

Later, the petitioner approached the HC and complained that despite the fact that he is a juvenile (date of birth certificate i.e. the registration card of the Bihar School Examination Board shows it as 01.01.2010), the Magistrate did not assess his age at the time of sending him behind the bars in complete breach of the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.