The order passed by the Alappuzha Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to grant police custody of three minors for the investigation of alleged murder of Haripad native Sivankutty Chettiyar will go down as one of the rarest moments in Kerala's criminal history. As per the case, a 13-year-old girl plotted the murder of her grandfather and got it executed by her three friends. All the accused were identified as minors which brought the case under the ambit of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act. It was one of the rare instances where all the accused in a murder case were minors.

While criminal procedure under the BNSS allows police to navigate steps like securing custody of accused for interrogation, material recovery and evidence collection through an application in the jurisdictional court, the JJ Act brought to fore stringent provisions on guarding privacy of accused. During two days of interrogation which spanned 8.5 hours, the police were able to garner crucial information from the three teenagers, who allegedly broke into the house of Chettiyar, bashed him and smothered him to death.

In a case without any witnesses, visual evidence and dying declaration, the police rely entirely on recovery of material evidence to prove the involvement of the accused in the crime. Three pairs of gloves, two gold rings and chain, clothes worn by the accused at the time of act, a perfume bottle and a hair gel tin became key material objects in the case. A SIM card, allegedly used by the accused to orchestrate the crime also needs to be recovered. The police have to take the three boys into custody for evidence collection and record statements related to shops from where materials were either purchased or allegedly sold. This was where the prosecution met with a legal challenge.

Without the escorted movement of the juveniles (custody), recovery was impossible and a decisive factor in building the case would be missed. The JJ Act, however bars police from keeping minors in lock-up or in jail. Assistant Public Prosecutor Manu Kallampally circumvented this hurdle citing that the special law prevents minors from being held in lock-up but it is silent on granting their custody for evidence collection which is not a punitive step but an investigative procedure. Another section which bars revealing the identity of accused was also countered with the statement that there is no mention about hindering the investigation process just because the accused are minors.

This absence of definitive provisions on granting custody for recovery of evidence also led to the interpretation that the criminal procedure laid down in BNSS on investigative procedure will prevail over the special law. "In acts like NDPS, there are clear rules on investigative procedure and hence it will prevail over the BNSS. In JJ Act, these provisions are absent and the board accepted the contention that in the absence of clauses in the JJ Act, BNSS provisions will come into play. We sought limited custody of the accused or else the investigation will remain incomplete without collection of evidence," the prosecutor told Onmanorama.

The entire process will be carried out in utmost secrecy. Haripad CI Vinod, who is in charge of the investigation, told Onmanorama that the JJB's order assumes great significance in the progress of the case. The investigating official can decide date and time of taking the minors for evidence collection and it will not be shared with anyone.