ORDER :

1. Leave granted in both the Special Leave Petitions.

2. The accused appellants who admittedly were juveniles under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (hereinafter referred to as “Act of 2000”) on the date of commission of the crime i.e. on 12th May, 2001 were tried in a regular Criminal Court and found guilty of offences punishable under Sections 323, 324, 325, 427, 455 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC” for short). Both the accused appellants were acquitted of the offence punishable under Section 302 IPC. The conviction under Section 455 IPC resulted in a sentence of rigorous imprisonment of three years which is the maximum of the punishments imposed on the accused appellants. The said conviction and sentences have been affirmed in appeal by the High Court.

3. The plea of juvenility of the accused appellants was taken before this Court for the first time. Accordingly, notices were issued to the State to respond to the said claim of the accused appellants. In the reply filed by the State the age of the accused appellants, as claimed, on the date of occurrence was admitted by the State. The accused – appellants, therefore, were juveniles on the date of occurrence of the offence(s).

4. In the aforesaid facts, two questions arise for determination in the present appeals before us. The first is with regard to the validity/correctness of the conviction recorded by the learned trial Court and affirmed by the High Court and, secondly, if the conviction to be maintained what should be the appropriate measure of punishment/sentence and whether the same should be imposed by this Court or the matter be remanded to the Juvenile Justice Board in accordance with the provisions of Section 20 of the Act of 2000.

5. The position in law in this regard is somewhat unsettled as has been noticed and dealt with by this Court in Jitendra Singh alias Babboo Singh and another versus State of Uttar Pradesh, (2013) 11 SCC 193 wherein in paragraphs 24 to 27 four categories of cases have been culled out where apparently different approaches had been adopted by this Court. The net result is summed up in paragraph 28 of the aforesaid report which explains the details of the categorization made in the earlier paragraphs of the said report. Paragraph 28 of the said report, therefore, would require a specific notice and is reproduced below:

“28. The sum and substance of the above discussion is that in one set of cases this Court has found the juvenile guilty of the crime alleged to have been committed by him but he has gone virtually unpunished since this Court quashed the sentence awarded to him. In another set of cases, this Court has taken the view, on the facts of the case that the juvenile is adequately punished for the offence committed by him by serving out some period in detention. In the third set of cases, this Court has remitted the entire case for consideration by the jurisdictional Juvenile Justice Board, both on the innocence or guilt of the juvenile as well as the sentence to be awarded if the juvenile is found guilty. In the fourth set of cases, this Court has examined the case on merits and after having found the juvenile guilty of the offence, remitted the matter to the jurisdictional Juvenile Justice Board on the award of sentence.”

6. The validity of the conviction in respect of the incident which occurred almost two decades back, in our considered view, ought to be decided in these appeals and the entire of the proceedings including the punishment/sentence awarded should not be interfered with on the mere ground that the accused appellants were juveniles on the date of commission of the alleged crime. Judicial approaches must always be realistic and have some relation to the ground realities. We, therefore, adopt one of the possible approaches that has been earlier adopted by this Court in the four categories of cases mentioned above to examine the correctness of the conviction of th