The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on the maintainability of a PIL filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking to change the legal interpretation of the term “juvenile” so that offenders below 18 years involved in criminal cases are punished according to their “mental age” and not biological age.
A bench headed by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam said the court will first decide the maintainability of the special leave petition and if it agrees, only then will it hear the plea on merits. The bench further said that the order will be pronounced within a week.
The order was reserved after Mr Swamy clarified to the bench that his petition was not “individual-centric” and the reference to the juvenile accused in the December 16 gangrape case in his plea was merely an illustration.