Though the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 do not provide any special procedure or manner for recording the confessional statement of a minor/juvenile but this becomes the prime duty of the Magistrate recording confession that he should be extra vigilant particularly in a case where the alleged cause of murder is an assault on the person of minor with the intention of gratifying unnatural lust. A three member Bench of this Court in the case of Hashim Qasim and another Vs. The State (2017 SCMR 986) has noted that it was desirable and appropriate that the accused should have been provided counseling/consultation facility of his natural Guardian or any close blood relative. But no such effort or any other extra measures were adopted by the learned Magistrate in this regard. The basic theme behind this is to rule out ell kinds of fears from the mind of an accused, especially the juvenile accused, making confession particularly that in case he was not making a confession he would not be handed over to police but here in this case the I.O. has admitted that the appellant was handed over to him after recording confessional statement to take him to judicial lockup and then he took him to jail along with warrant.
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