Judgment SUBBA RAO, J. : (for himself and on behalf of K. C. Das Gupta J.) : This appeal by special leave raises the question of jurisdiction of an appellate court to exercise its power under S. 6 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958 (Act No. 20 of 1958), hereinafter called the Act, in respect of an accused who was convicted by the trial court before the Act came into force. 2. The facts are not now in dispute. The appellant, a resident of Palwal in Gurgaon District, committed house trespass and tried to outrage the modesty of a girl aged 7 years. He was sent up for trial before the Magistrate, First Class, Palwal. The said Magistrate, on May 31, 1962, connected him under Ss. 451 and 354 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to six month s rigorous imprisonment under each count and directed that the sentences should run concurrently. He further imposed a fine of Rs. 200/- on the appellant under S. 451 of the Indian Penal Code and ordered that, in default of payment of fine, he should undergo rigorous imprisonment for two months. The appellant was 16 years old at the time of his conviction. The Act was extended to Gurgaon District on September 1, 1962 and, therefore, at the time the appellant was convicted by the Magistrate, the Magistrate had no power or duty to make any order under the Act. The appellant preferred an appeal against his conviction and sentences to the Additional Sessions Judge, Gurgaon, who, by his judgment dated September 22, 1962, dismissed the appeal. Though by the time the Additional Sessions Judge disposed of the appeal the said Act had come into force, neither the appellant relied upon the provisions of the Act nor did the learned Additional Sessions Judge exercise his power thereunder. The revision filed in the High Court by the appellant was dismissed on September 27, 1962. The revision petition was dimissed in limine, but no ground was taken in the revision petition that the Additional Sessions Judge should have acted under S. 6 of the Act. After the revision petition was disclosed of, it appears that the appellant filed Criminal Misc. Petn. No. 793 of 1962 requesting the High Court to exercise its jurisdiction under S. 11 of the Act and to pass orders under Ss. 3, 4 or 6 thereof. After the revision petition was disclosed of, it appears that the appellant filed Criminal Misc. Petn. No. 793 of 1962 requesting the High Court to exercise its jurisdiction under S. 11 of the Act and to pass orders under Ss. 3, 4 or 6 thereof. The said application was also dismissed. Unfortunately the said application is not on the record and we are not in a position to know the exact scope of the relief asked for in the application and the reasons for which it was dismissed. The appellant filed a petition in the High Court under Art. 134(1)(c) of the Constitution for a certificate of fitness to appeal to this Court. One of the grounds for seeking such a certificate was that the High Court should have acted under S. 11 of the Act and passed orders under Ss. 3, 4 or 6 thereof. That petition having been dismissed, the appellant has preferred the present appeal to this Court by obtaining special leave. 3. Learned counsel for the appellant contends that, having regard to the admitted facts in the case, the High Court should have acted under S. 11 of the Act and released the appellant on probation of good conduct instead of sending him to prison. On the other hand learned counsel for the State argues that the Act is not retrospective in operation and, therefore, it will not apply to the appellant, as he was convicted before it came into force in Gurgaon District. Further, he contends that neither S. 11 of the Act nor S. 6 thereof, on the basis of the express phraseology used therein, can be invoked in the circumstances of the present case. In any view, he says that the appellant, not having raised this plea till after the revision petition was disposed of by the High Court, is precluded by his default to raise this contention at this very late stage. 4. The Act is a milestone in the progress of the modern liberal trend of reform in the field of penology. It is the result of the recognition of the doctrine that the object of criminal law is more to reform the individual offender than to punish him. 4. The Act is a milestone in the progress of the modern liberal trend of reform in the field of penology. It is the result of the recognition of the doctrine that the object of criminal law is more to reform the individual offender than to punish him. Broadly stated, the Act distinguishes offenders below 21 years of age and those above that age, and offenders who are guilty of having committed an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life and those who are guilty of a lesser offence. While in the case of offenders who are above the age at 21 years absolute discretion is given to the court to release them after admonition or on probation of good conduct, subject to the conditions laid down in the appropriate provisions of the Act, in the case of offenders below the age of 21 years an injunction is issued to the court not to sentence them to imprisonment unless it is satisfied that, having regard to the circumstances of the case, including the nature of the offence and the character of the offenders, it is not desirable to deal with them under Ss. 3 and 4 of the Act. 5. With this short background we shall now read the relevant provisions of the Act. Section 6. (1) When any person under twenty-one years or age is found guilty of having committed an offence punishable with imprisonment (but not with the imprisonment for life), the court by which the person is found guilty shall not sentence him to imprisonment unless it is satisfied that, having regard to the circumstances of the case including the nature of the offence and the character of the offender, it would not be desirable to deal with him under section 3 or section 4, and if the Court passes any sentence of imprisonment on the offender, it shall record its reasons for doing so. (2) For the purpose of satisfying itself whether it would not be desirable to deal under Section 3 or Section 4 with an offender referred to in sub-section (1), the Court shall call for a report from the probation officer and consider the report, if any, and any other information available to it relating to, the character and physical and mental condition of the offender. Section 11. Section 11. (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code or any other law, an order under this Act may be made by any Court empowered to try and sentence the offender to imprisonment and also by the High Court or any other Court when the case comes before it on appeal or in revision. (2) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code, where in order under section 3 or S. 4 is made by any Court trying the offender (other than a High Court), an appeal shall lie to the Court to which appeals ordinarily lie from the sentences of the former Court. (3) In any case where any person under twenty-one years of age is found guilty of having committed an offence and the Court by which he is found guilty declines to deal with him under Section 3 or Section 4, and passed against him any sentence of imprisonment with or without fine from which no appeal lies or is preferred, then, notwithstanding anything contained in the Code or any other law, the Court to which appeals ordinarily lie from the sentences of the former Court may, either of its own motion or on an application made to it by the convicted person or the probation officer, call for and examine the record of the case and pass such order thereon as it thinks fit. (4) x x x x x x 6. The first question is whether the High Court, acting under S. 11 of the Act, can exercise the power conferred on a court under S. 6 of the Act. It is said that the jurisdiction of the High Court under S. 11 (3) of the Act is confined only to a case that has been brought to its file by appeal or revision and, therefore, it can only exercise such jurisdiction as the trial court had, and in the present case the trial court could not have made any order under S. 6 of the Act, as at the time it made the order the Act had not been extended to Gurgaon District. On this assumption, the argument proceeds, the Act should not be given retrospective operation, as, if so given, it would affect the criminal liability of a person for an act committed by him before the Act came into operation. On this assumption, the argument proceeds, the Act should not be given retrospective operation, as, if so given, it would affect the criminal liability of a person for an act committed by him before the Act came into operation. In support of this contention a number of decisions being on the question of retroactivity of a statute in the context of vested rights have been cited. Every law that takes away or impairs a vested right is retrospective. Every ex post facto law is necessarily retrospective. Under Art. 20 of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of that act charged as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence. But an ex post facto law which only mollifies the rigour of a criminal law does not fall within the said prohibition. If a particular law makes a provision to that effect, though retrospective in operation, it will be valid. The question whether such a law is retrospective and, if so, to what extent depends upon the interpretation of a particular statute, having regard to the well settled rules of construction. Maxwell in his book "On Interpretation of Statutes 11th edition, at pp. 274-275, summarizes the relevant rule of construction thus: "The tendency of, modern decisions, upon the whole, is to narrow materially the difference between what is called a strict and a beneficial construction. All statutes are now construed with a more attentive regard to the language, and criminal statutes with a more rational regard to the aim and intention of the legislature, then formerly. It is unquestionably right that the distinction should not altogeher erased from the judicial mind, for it is required by the spirit of our free instituitions that the interpretation of all statutes should be favourable to personal liberty, and this tendency is still evinced in a certain reluctance to supply the defects of language, or to eke out the meaning of an obscure passage by strained or doubtful influences. The effect of the rule of strict construction might almost be summed up in the remark that where an equivocal word or ambiguous sentence leaves a reasonable doubt of its meaning which the canons of interpretation fail to solve, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the subject and against the legislature which has failed to explain itself. But it yields to the paramount rule that every statute is to be expounded according to its expressed or manifest intention and that all cases within the mischiefs aimed at are, if the language permits, to be held to fall within its remedial influence". 7. Let us now proceed to consider the question raised in the present case. This is not a case where an act, which was not an offence before the Act, is made an offence under the Act .. nor this is a case where under the Act a punishment higher than that obtaining for an offence before the Act is imposed. This is an instance where neither the ingredients of the offence nor the limits of the sentence are disturbed, but a provision is made to help the reformation of a accused through the agency of the court. Even so the statute affects an offence committed before it was extended to the area in question. It is therefore, a post facto law and has retrospective operation. In considering the scope of such a provision we must adopt the rule of beneficial construction as enunciated by the modern trend of judicial opinion without doing violence to the provisions of the relevant section. Section 11 (3) of the Act, on the basis of which the learned counsel for the State advances most of his arguments has no relevance to the present appeal: the said sub-section applies only to a case where no appeal lies or is preferred against the order of a court declining to deal with an accused under S. 3 or S. 4 of the Act, and in the instant case an appeal lay to the Sessions Judge and indeed on appeal was preferred from the order of the Magistrate. The provision that directly applies to the present case is S. 11 (1) of the Act, whereunder an order under the Act may be made by any Court empowered to try and sentence the offender to imprisonment and also by the High Court or any other court when the case comes before it on appeal or in revision. The Sub-section ex facie does not circumscribe the jurisdiction of an appellate court to make an order under the Act only in a case where the trial court could have made that order. The phraseology used therein is wide enough to enable the appellate court or the High Court, when the case comes before it, to make such an order. It was purposely made comprehensive, as the Act was made to implement a social reform. As the Act does not change the quantum of the sentence, but only introduces a provision to reform the offender there is no reason why the Legislature should have prohibited the exercise of such a power, even if the case was pending against the accused at one stage or other in the hierarchy of tribunals. If the provisions of S. 6 (1) of the Act were read along with S. 11, we would reach the same result. When S. 11 (1) says that an appellate court or a revisional court can make an order under the Act, it means that it can make an order also under S. 6(1) of the Act. If so, "court" in S. 6(1) will include an appellate court as well as a revisional court. If an appellate court or a revisional court finds a person guilty, under that section it shall not sentence him to imprisonment unless the conditions laid down is that section are satisfied. Can it be said that the expression "the court by which the person is found guilty" does not include the appellate or revisional court ? When an appellate court or a revisional court confirms a conviction made by a trial court or sets aside an acquittal made by it and convicts the accused, in either case if finds the accused guilty, for without finding the accused guilty it cannot either confirm the conviction or set aside the order of acquittal and convict him. When an appellate court or a revisional court confirms a conviction made by a trial court or sets aside an acquittal made by it and convicts the accused, in either case if finds the accused guilty, for without finding the accused guilty it cannot either confirm the conviction or set aside the order of acquittal and convict him. If the contention advanced by learned counsel for the State, namely, that the Act will apply only to convictionsmade by the trial court after the Act came into force, be accepted , it would lead to several anomalies: it would mean that the Act would apply to a conviction made by a trial court after the Act came into force, but would not apply to an accused, though his appeal was pending after the Act came into force: it would apply to the accused if the appellate court set aside the conviction and sent back the case to the trial court for fresh disposal, but would not if the appellate court itself convicted him. On the other hand, if he expression "found guilty" was given the natural meaning it would take in the finding of guilty made by any court in a pending criminal proceeding in the heirchy of tribunals after the Act came into force. This view gets support from the judgment of this Court in Ramji Missar v. State of Bihar, AIR 1963 SC 1088 at p. 1092. The facts of that case relevant to the present case were as follows: The Assistant Sessions judge, Arrah, convicted one Basist under S. 307 and S. 326 of the Indian Penal Code. As the offences under the said sections were punishable with imprisonment for life, the provision of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, were not applicable to Basist and, therefore, the Assistant Sessions Judge sentenced him to undergo rilorous imprisonment for 6 years under S. 307 of the Indian, Penal Code and for 4 years rigorous imprisonment under S. 326 of the said Code and ordered the sentences to run concurrently. But the High Court on appeal found Basist guilty of an offence under S. 324 of the Indian Penal Code. But the High Court on appeal found Basist guilty of an offence under S. 324 of the Indian Penal Code. It was contended that the High Court could not make an order under S. 6(1) of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, on the ground that S. 11 of the Act did not confer such a power on the High Court. Dealing with this argument, this Court observed: "It is however possible that the words in S. 11 (1) "pass an order under the Act" are not to be construed so strictly and literally, but to be understood to mean "to exercise the powers or jurisdiction conferred by the Act." This wide interpretation might perhaps be justified by the scope and object of this section. Section 11 is to apply "notwithstanding anything in the Code or any other law" to all courts empowered to sentence offenders to imprisonment. To read a beneficial provision of this universal type in a restricted sense, so as to confine the power of these courts to the exercise of the powers under Ss. 3 and 4 alone would not, in our opinion, be in accord with sound principles of statutory interpretation. We are therefore inclined to hold that the Courts mentioned in s. 11 be they trial courts or exercising appellate or revisional jurisdiction are thereby empowered to exercise the jurisdction conferred on Courts not only under Ss. 3 and 4 and the consequential provision but also under S. 6." When it was contended that the word "may" in S. 11 of the Act empowers the appellate court or the High Court to exercise the power at its option and the words "any order under the Act" empower it to make an order without reference to the standards laid down in the Act, this Court rejected both the contentions. It held that the expression "may" has compulsory force and that the power conferred on the appellate court was of the same nature and characteristic and subject to the same criteria and limitations as those conferred on courts under Ss. 3 and 4 of the Act. It held that the expression "may" has compulsory force and that the power conferred on the appellate court was of the same nature and characteristic and subject to the same criteria and limitations as those conferred on courts under Ss. 3 and 4 of the Act. This decision lays down three propositions, namely,(i) an appellate court or a revisional court can make an order under S. 6(1) of the Act in exercise of its power under S. 11(1) thereof; (ii) it can make such an order for the first time even though the trial court could not have made such an order, having regard to the finding given by it; and (iii) in making such For Citation : AIR 1965 SC 444 Vikas Info Solutions Pvt. Ltd.