PUNE: The Juvenile Justice Board on Tuesday rejected Pune police's plea seeking to try a 17-year-old boy as an adult in connection with the Porsche crash case, in which two people were allegedly mowed down by him while driving in an inebriated state.
The incident, which made national headlines, occurred in the Kalyani Nagar area on May 19 last year, resulting in the deaths of motorcycle-borne IT professionals Anish Awadhiya and his friend Ashwini Costa.
The Pune police had last year sought that the accused be tried as an adult, stating that he had committed a "heinous" act. They argued that not only were two persons allegedly crushed to death, but there were also attempts to tamper with evidence.
On Tuesday, the Juvenile Justice Board rejected the plea to treat the teenager as an adult, according to defence counsel Prashant Patil.
Speaking to PTI, Patil said he had opposed the prosecution's demand by citing Supreme Court judgments.
"We had cited a Supreme Court judgement, Shilpa Mittal vs State, in which the SC has defined what constitutes a heinous crime. The guidelines decided by the Supreme Court are binding on everyone.
However, the plea by the prosecution is contrary to the apex court's judgement. We demanded that since the plea is contrary to the SC's guidelines, it is not maintainable," he said.
To define a certain crime as heinous, the prosecution must invoke a section that carries a minimum punishment of seven years, the counsel said.
"In the present case, not a single section has a minimum punishment of seven years. So, we argued how this plea is maintainable," he added.
Patil further stated that it was the responsibility of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to determine whether the child in conflict with law (CCL) should be treated as an adult or not.
"The JJB should carry out the preliminary assessment to determine whether the CCL should be treated as an adult or a minor, and in this case, the JJB had already done that. It has not come in their preliminary assessment that he should be treated as an adult," said Patil.
The teenager was granted bail just hours after the incident on May 19 last year. The lenient bail terms, which allegedly included asking him to write a 300-word essay on road safety, triggered a nationwide outcry. He was sent to an observation home in Pune city three days later.
On 25 June 2024, the Bombay High Court directed that the boy be released immediately, stating that the Juvenile Justice Board's orders remanding him to the observation home were illegal and that the law regarding juveniles must be fully implemented.
Meanwhile, arguments are ongoing in a sessions court in Pune for framing charges against 10 other accused in the case. The accused include the teenager's father and mother, along with Sassoon Hospital doctors Ajay Taware and Shrihari Halnor, staffer Atul Ghatkamble, middlemen Bashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad, as well as Aditya Avinash Sood, Ashish Mittal, and Arun Kumar Singh.
While the juvenile’s mother is currently out on bail, the remaining nine accused are in jail.
Earlier this month, the prosecution told the court that there had been alleged attempts to swap blood samples at a second hospital to shield the teenager from legal consequences, but the attempt was not successful.
Submitting additional documents under Section 173(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the prosecution said that the Pune police had initially collected the minor’s blood samples at Sassoon Hospital but suspected possible tampering.
As a precautionary measure, they also got a second sample collected at Aundh Government Hospital. However, the accused, including the teenager’s parents, allegedly got wind of the move and tried to interfere, the police said.
According to the prosecution, the accused approached Aundh hospital authorities to allegedly swap the samples, but the doctors there refused to cooperate and turned them away.
