Hon’ble S.N.H. Zaidi, J.—This is a revision against the judgment and order dated 23.11.2005 passed by the Sessions Judge, Saharanpur in Criminal Misc. Case No. 184/2005, Mohd. Amjad v. State, rejecting the application of the revisionist of declaring him juvenile.

2. The facts which gave rise to this revision, in brief, are that a case Crime No. 5 of 2005, under Section 376, I.P.C. of Police Station Chilkana, District Saharanpur was registered against the revisionist. The accused-revisionist moved an application before the Sessions Judge for declaring him as juvenile on the ground that he is aged only 16 years. The learned Sessions Judge after making an inquiry and hearing the accused and the D.G.C. (Criminal) rejected the application by the impugned order. Feeling aggrieved with the order the accused has filed this revision.

3. Despite personal service of the notice of revision no objection/affidavit has been filed either by the State or by O.P. No. 2.

4. I have heard the learned Counsel for the revisionist and opposite party No. 2 and the learned AGA for the State and perused the record of the matter.

5. The contention of the learned Counsel for the revisionist is that the learned lower Court has committed error in not relying upon the school leaving certificate in determining the age of the revisionist. It has also been contended that the age of the revisionist is to be taken into consideration vis-a-vis the date of alleged incident. According to the learned Counsel, the alleged incident of the offence of Section 376, I.P.C. was committed on 3.1.2005 and, according to the school leaving certificate, the date of birth of the revisionist was 5.4.1988 and thus it is sufficiently proved that the revisionist was below 17 years of age on the date of alleged offence. The learned Sessions Judge has also got the ossification test

of the revisionist done for determining his age and as per medical report the accused was about 18 years of age.

6. The accused-revisionist had filed certain documentary evidence before the lower Court in respect of his age, namely the school leaving certificate, copies of family register, Ration Card. In the family register the date of birth of the revisionist is mentioned as 1.11.1992 whereas in the ration card the age of accused has been shown as 10 years. As the learned Sessions Judge found discrepancies in respect of the age/date of birth of the accused in the documents filed on his behalf, therefore, she did not rely upon them.

7. So far as the medical report in respect of the age of the revisionist is concerned, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Jai Mala v. Home Secretary, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir, 1982 SCC (Cri) 502, has observed that “However, it is notorious and one can take judicial notice that the margin of error in age ascertained by radiological examination is two years on either side.”

8. In Rajendra Chandra v. State of Chhatisgarh and another, 2002(1) GIC 609, the Supreme Court has observed that “while dealing with the question of determination of age of the accused for the purpose of finding out whether he is a juvenile or not, a hyper-technical approach should not be adopted while appreciating the evidence adduced on behalf of the accused in support of the plea that he was a juvenile and if two views may be possible on the said evidence the Court should lean in favour of holding accused to be juvenile in border line cases.”

9. In view of the above observations of the Supreme Court the lower Court does not appear to have taken a correct view in rejecting the school leaving certificate which was filed as Exhibit Ka-1 by the P.W. 1 Mohd. Islam, the father of the revisionist. The observation of the lower Court that as there are contradictions in respect of the age of the accused in the documentary evidence filed on behalf of the accused, therefore, it had refused to rely on the school leaving certificate, does not appear to be a correct approach to reject an otherwise reliable and acceptable docume