On Tuesday, in a landmark decision, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) ruled that the 17-year-old juvenile, who is the accused in the high-profile Pune Porsche accident, should be dealt with under the Juvenile Justice Act. This ruling has been a disappointment to the police in the city of Pune, who had approached the court to have the case against the teenager tried differently by a different tribunal because of the seriousness and nature of the offence.
The accident occurred in the wee hours of May 19, last year, and it involved a Porsche, which the said teenager was driving in a drunken state. The fast-paced car hit a two-wheeler in Kalyani Nagar in Pune, killing two IT professionals on the spot, Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta. It caused a national outcry, in particular, when the teenager was first bailed with the requirement to write a 300-word essay about road safety, an act that was widely criticized.
Outcry by people resulted in reconsideration of the case, and the minor was later institutionalized in an observation home. Though he was set free ultimately, his case found more controversy when in June the mother of the teenager was arrested on the grounds of swapping her own blood sample with that of her son when she tested positive in a blood test to hide the fact that her son had been consuming alcohol when in fact she had not. She is said to have paid a sum of 3 lakhs to conduct the cover-up. Later in April, she received interim bail from the Supreme Court.
At the JJB hearing, Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray tried to sway the argument that considering the boy as a Class-I Juvenile (or Child in Conflict with Law) should be tried as an adult under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), and 467 (forgery) of the IPC. The two are categorized as heinous offences under the Juvenile Justice Act. The JJB, however, ruled in a contrary way out of the need to preserve juvenile protection under the law.
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