Delhi hit-and-run: Minor challenges juvenile board's decision to try him as an adult

New Delhi: A minor accused in a hit-and-run case which killed a business consultant on Thursday challenged a Juvenile Justice Board order that he will be tried as an adult. The minor offender moved a plea before a Sessions Court challenging the Board’s order and said the alleged offence does not fall under the category of heinous crime. His counsel, Rajiv Mohan and Abhimanyu Kampani, said the juvenile should be tried under section 304-A (causing death by negligence) instead of section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.  The Sessions Court will hear the matter on Friday. In the first prosecution under the amended Juvenile Justice Act, the Board on Saturday ordered that the minor will be tried as an adult while allowing the Delhi Police plea seeking to try the offender — who was 17 in April — as an adult as the offence was defined as heinous crime. The juvenile turned a major — 18-years-old — just four days after the Mercedes he was driving at high speed mowed down Siddharth Sharma in Civil Lines in north Delhi on the evening of 4 April. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2015 allows for juveniles 16 years or older to be tried as adults for heinous offences like rape and murder. The Act was amended following public outrage after one of the offenders in the 16 December, 2012 gang rape case escaped being tried in court as he was a few months short of turning 18. The police, in its chargesheet filed on 26 May, had charged the juvenile with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which entails a maximum of 10 years in jail. Police apprehended the minor on 5 April, a day after he knocked down Sharma. The minor was freed on bail as he was booked for causing death by negligence. Later, police charged him with culpable homicide not amounting to murder. In the final investigation report, police charged the juvenile with offences under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 279 (driving on a public way so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life) and 337 (causing hurt by an act which endangers human life). The juvenile’s father was arrested under Section 304 (abetting culpable homicide not amounting to murder) for letting his minor son drive despite knowing he had caused an accident earlier. The father later got bail. Police earlier told the court that CCTV footage showed that the teenager was driving his car at a high speed in a residential area.