Pune Porsche crash: Can the 17-year-old boy, who ‘killed 2’, be tried as an adult?

A horror unfolded on the streets of Pune in the wee hours of Sunday. A speeding Porsche allegedly driven by a 17-year-old boy rammed into a motorcycle in the city’s Yerwada area,
killing two young techies
in their 20s. After the accused was leniently granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board, an outrage ensued.

The minor should be tried like an adult, demands the victim’s family, the Pune Police, and politicians. But is that a possibility? What does the law say? We explain.

How Pune Police is building a case against teen driving Porsche

The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) granted the teenager involved in a car accident bail asking him to write a
300-word essay
. What followed was anger and allegations of a shoddy investigation, as reports emerged of the boy drinking in a pub.

On Wednesday, the JJB issued a notice to the boy to appear before it at noon. He will be tried for drink driving, the juvenile court ruled.

The Pune Police have said they will seek a higher court’s permission to prosecute the boy as an adult. According to police, a case has been registered against him under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder ) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.

Police have also registered a case against the
youngster’s father
, a real estate developer, who has now been arrested.

The 17-year-old accused had acknowledged that his act caused death and the Indian Police Code section had been applied against him accordingly, the Pune Police chief Amitesh Kumar told NDTV. According to the commissioner, the police are trying to build a watertight case.

Maharashtra deputy chief minister, who also holds the Home portfolio, has criticised the “extremely lenient” way the teen was granted bail. “The order of the Juvenile Justice Board is shocking. We have filed a revision petition… I need not speak more on that,” Fadnavis said.

Also read: Pune Porsche crash: Why teen, who killed 2, has been let off with writing an essay while father has been detained

The BJP leader said that there was a lot of anger among people after the death of two youngsters. “In this regard, I held a meeting with the police commissioner and got details of the action taken so far as well as the future actions to be taken. We also discussed the steps to be taken to prevent such incidents in future,” he claimed.

Fadnavis added that in their remand application before the Juvenile Justice Board, the Pune Police had mentioned that after the amendment to the law in the wake of the Nirbhaya incident (2012 Delhi gang rape), those above 16 years of age involved in heinous crimes should be treated as adults, according to a report in The Indian Express.

Why was the Juvenile Justice Act amended? When can a juvenile be tried as an adult?

After the Delhi gang rape, which led to the woman’s death, an amendment was proposed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development led by then-minister Maneka Gandhi. One of the offenders was a 17-year-old, which led to the ministry proposing the change. The J S Verma Committee, which was formed to recommend amendments, stated that it was not in favour of reducing the age of a juvenile from 18 to 16.

In 2015, the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 was amended with a provision which allowed for Children in Conflict with Law (CCL) to be tried as adults under certain circumstances. As per the act, a child is someone who is under 18 years of age. The age of the date of the offence determines if a child is in conflict with the law and whether he or she is an adult or not.

According to the amended law, children aged 16 to 18 can be tried as adults if they have committed a heinous offence. It attracts a maximum punishment of seven years. But the act doesn’t make it mandatory for all children in this age group to be tried as adults.

Section 15 of The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act (JJ Act) says that when a child of 16 or above has committed a heinous offence, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) is required to “conduct a preliminary assessment with regard to his mental and physical capacity to commit such offence, ability to understand the consequences of the offence and the circumstances in which he allegedly committed the offence”.

Based on this assessment, a decision is made if a child is tried as an adult. This has to be done within three months from the date the offender is first produced before the Board.

The Board comprises a judicial member, a principal magistrate, and two non-judicial-appointed members, who are social workers.

Also read: Pune Porsche crash: How a night out turned tragic for two young techies

How is the assessment conducted?

Last year, the National Commission for Protection of Children (NCPCR) issued guidelines for the JJB to conduct a preliminary assessment of the offender. The Board shall examine the mental and physical capacity of the child to commit the crime, the ability to understand its consequences and the circumstance in which the alleged offence was carried out.

The JJB should have at least one member who is a practising professional with a degree in child psychology or child psychiatry and if not the Board should take the assistance of psychologists or experts who have the experience of working with children in difficult times, reports The Hindu.

The child should also be provided with legal aid counsel through the District Legal Services Authority, who shall be present during the preliminary assessment, the report says.

What happens if a juvenile is to be treated as an adult?

After a decision has been arrived at, the case is transferred to the children’s court, which will decide if there is a need for a trial of the child as an adult or not, according to Section 19 of the amended act, reports The Indian Express. It is the court’s responsibility to send the offender to a “place of safety” until they reach the age of 21 after which they are moved to a jail.

The court can order the conditional release after the offender turns 21. However, a child who is tried as an adult is not allowed two protections given to juvenile offenders – protection from disqualification and erasure of conviction record after a reasonable period, the report says.

Have there been cases where children are tried as adults?

Yes, there have been a rare few cases in which children have been ordered to be tried as adults.

In September 2017, a Class 2 student of a prominent Gurgaon school was found murdered inside its washroom. A conductor was first arrested but after the CBI took over the investigation it arrested a Class 11 student.

The JJB, which decided to treat the student as an adult, was asked to make a fresh assessment in October 2018 by the Punjab and Haryana Court HC. The court order was challenged by the CBI and the victim’s father in the Supreme Court, which ordered a status quo in the case. The petitions were dismissed in July 2022 and the accused has remained in an observation home since his arrest.

In September 2022, the Supreme Court rejected the Kathua gang-rape-murder case accused’s juvenility to order him to face trial as an adult. The case involved the abduction, gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl, belonging to the nomadic Bakarwal community by six Hindu men and the minor in January 2018.

Last September, a Delhi court directed the prosecution of two minors, both around 17 years of age, as adults in a murder case, noting that they were “emboldened” to commit a brutal crime after being let off early in another murder case, reports PTI news agency.