This section prohibits joint trial of a juvenile with an adult criminal, the reason being that if the juvenile has to go through general criminal procedure of arrest, prosecution, defence, burden of proof, conviction, imprisonment etc. as in case of adult offenders, the very purpose of Juvenile Justice Act will be defeated.
In Balkar Singh v. State of Punjab the petitioner who was being tried jointly with adult accused, claimed himself to be juvenile as per two school leaving certificates. The certificates indicated that the petitioner was a juvenile on the date of alleged occurrence of the offence.
No contrary evidence regarding age of the petitioner was led by the prosecution nor any attempt made to conduct ossification test. No birth certificate was available since there was no entry made with Registrar, Births and Deaths.
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Under these circumstances, the finding of trial Court that petitioner was not a juvenile was set aside. Hence the trial of the petitioner juvenile could not be proceeded with other accused in view of the provisions contained in Section 18 of the J.J. Act, 2000.
If the Board finds that the juvenile produced before it has committed the offence jointly with one or more adult offenders, then it may order separate trial of the juvenile. The nature of proceedings before the Board being more or less informal, every attempt is made to segregate the juvenile from the other adult criminals so that they may be kept away from vicious atmosphere of criminality.
The Juvenile Justice Board can pass an order against the juvenile on his being found guilty of having committed the offence, only under the Juvenile Justice Act and under no other law.