PUNE: The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) in Pune on Tuesday rejected Pune police’s application seeking the 17-year-old’s trial as an adult in the Porsche Taycan car crash that claimed the lives of two young techies in the early hours of May 19, 2024.The JJB has relied on a Supreme Court ruling while observing that the offence attributed to the minor does not fall within the ambit of a ‘heinous offence’ within the meaning of the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection) Act. The JJB’s order comes a more than a year after the accident that created a major sensation across the country over its decision to grant bail to the teenager against conditions like writing a 300-word essay on traffic discipline.
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Investigating officer ACP Ganesh Ingale confirmed to TOI that the JJB has rejected the police’s plea. “We expect to get a full text of the JJB’s order in due course of time,” he added.The teenager’s lawyer Prashant Patil said, “We had argued, among other things, that the offences attributed to the minor could not be termed as ‘heinous’ in nature considering the SC ruling in the case of XXX(minor’s name withheld) vs state of NCT of Delhi. The apex court held in that case that offences prescribing maximum sentence of more than seven years but not providing any minimum sentence, or a providing a minimum sentence of less than seven years, cannot be considered to be ‘heinous offence’ within the meaning of section 2 (33) of the JJ Act. The JJB has accepted our argument.”
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