Powers of courts to pass a sentence of detention in a Borstal Institution in the case of a convict under twenty-one years of age in lieu of transportation or rigorous imprisonment

(1) When any male person less than twenty-one years of age is convicted of an offence by a court of Sessions, a Magistrate specially empowered under section 30 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, or a Judicial Magistrate of the first class, or is ordered to give security for good behaviour and fails to give such security; and when by reason of his criminal habits or tendencies or associations with persons of bad character it is expedient in the opinion of the Judge or Magistrate, that he should be detained, such Judge or Magistrate may in lieu of passing a sentence of transportation or rigorous imprisonment, pass an order of detention for a term which shall not be less than two years and shall not exceed seven years when the order is passed by a court of Sessions or a Magistrate specially empowered under section 30 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, and shall not be less than two years nor exceed three years, when the order is passed by a Judicial Magistrate of the first class not so empowered. (2) When any Judicial Magistrate, not empowered to pass such order, is of opinion that an offender convicted by him is a person in respect of whom such order should be passed in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1) he may, without passing any sentence, record such opinion and submit his proceedings and forward the accused to the Chief Judicial Magistrate to whom he is subordinate. (3) The Chief Judicial Magistrate to whom the proceedings are so submitted may make such enquiry (if any) as he may deem fit and pass such order for the detention of the offender or such other sentence or order, as he might have passed if the trial had been held by him from its commencement.