Hon’ble Surendra Kumar, J.—Heard Sri V.K. Jaiswal, learned counsel for the revisionists and learned A.G.A. and perused the material available on record.

2. This revision has been filed by two accused persons, who are revisionists herein, being dissatisfied with the order dated 10.2.2010 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Court No. 1, Allahabad in Session Trial No. 958 of 2005-State v. Shreedhar Dubey and others, under Sections 147, 308 323, 504, 506 I.P.C., Police Station Ghoorpur, District Allahabad, whereby the joint application of the revisionists, Paper No. 18C, was rejected and 27.2.2010 was fixed for prosecution evidence.

3. It appears that the revisionists are facing the aforesaid case in which they moved application Paper No. 18C, stating therein that they have been made accused in the said session trial and at the time of occurrence, they were students and minors, hence their case be separated from the other accused persons and the same be forwarded to the Juvenile Court for hearing. According to their High School Certificates Paper No. 19C/2 and 19C/3 annexed with affidavit 19C of Shreedhar Dwivedi dated 28.2.2007, the date of birth of Kamlakar Dwivedi is 19.11.1977 and that of Sudhakar Dwivedi is 1.10.1978.

4. The learned trial Court after going through prosecution case and the documents regarding date of birth of both the revisionists, held that the accused Kamlakar Dwivedi was aged 17 years, 4 months 18 days and accused Sudhakar Dwivedi was aged 16 years, 6 months 6 days on the date of occurrence namely 7.4.1995. The learned trial Court by applying the law laid down in the Constitution Bench case of Pratap Singh v. State of Jharkhand, (2005) 3 SCC 551, held that in the terms of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 1986 (hereinafter referred to as the Act 1986) age of the offender was to be counted from the date of commission of the offence. In the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (hereinafter referred to as the Act 2000), the legal position remains the same. The revisionists were not held juvenile as they had already crossed the age of 16 years. Thus, the revisionists were not juvenile when the occurrence had taken place in terms of Act 1986. At the commencement of the Act 2000, the revisionists had crossed the age of juvenility. Discussing these things, the learned trial Court has also observed that Section 20 of the Act 2000 deals with and extends limited benefit in those cases in which under Act 1986, the accused (male) was over 16 years of age and on 1.4.2001, when the Act 2000 came into force, he was below 18 years of age.

5. The learned trial Court by the impugned order has rejected the aforesaid application by which the revisionists claimed themselves to be juvenile on the ground that since the Act 2000 is prospective in operation and it came into force from 1.4.2001, approximately six years after commission of the offence, therefore, the applicants-revisionists herein, were not held entitled to be declared juvenile under Act 2000.

6. It appears from the impugned order that the learned Additional Session Judge before whom the matter was pending, ignored to consider the Amendment Act 2006 and did not consider the question of juvenility at all. The Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 was amended by Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2006 (hereinafter referred to as the Amendment Act 2006). By Amendment Act 2006, Section 7-A was newly inserted and Section 20 was also amended by adding thereto a proviso and an explanation. The newly inserted Section 7-A is reproduced below :

“7-A. Procedure to be followed when claim of juvenility is raised before any Court.—(1) Whenever a claim of juvenility is raised before any Court or a Court is of the opinion that an accused person was a juvenile on the date of commission of the offence, the Court shall make an enquiry, take such evidence as may be necessary (but not an affidavit) so as to