The decision of the Juvenile Justice Board — that the main accused in the Pune Porsche crash case will be tried as a juvenile and not an adult – is just another example of money and power at play and will again open the board’s functioning to question, said the fathers of the two software professionals who died in the crash.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Suresh Koshta, the father of Ashwini Koshta, said, “Even after more than a year, no one was appointed in the place of board members who had been sacked by the government. So how is it that within a month, people were appointed and decisions were taken… there will be questions raised on their functioning”.
“Right in the beginning, the whole country had pointed fingers at the functioning of the juvenile justice board. A person who was drinking, driving a car, how can he be considered a juvenile… I think there should have been no question about treating him as an adult,” he added.
Om Prakash Awadhiya, the father of Aneesh Awadhiya, said it was “clear from the beginning what we would get”.
“The government should have ensured that such a thing did not happen. Now that this has happened, what can we say?” he added.
Asked if he thought that this was still a game of money power and influence, he said while it did not happen in front of him, it is clear that such a thing is, indeed, happening. “these are rich people”.
“They give a car costing Rs 3 crore in the hands of their children… Media reported that they were trying to change the blood samples but could not do it because of the doctors,” he added.
The accused in the case, 17 years old at the time, had been ‘celebrating’ exam results with friends on May 19, 2024. They drank heavily — running up a bill of Rs 48,000 in just 90 minutes – and the accused, on his way back, had rammed his father’s car into the 24-year-old software professionals. They had died on the spot.
The police were accused of mis-handling the case – the father of the accused being a prominent businessman in the city.
The Juvenile Justice’s decision today is expected to intensify the row.
Public outrage had peaked last year at the board’s lenient terms to grant him bail that included writing a 300-word essay on road safety. He was then sent to an observation home in Pune city.
Speaking to PTI, defence counsel Prashant Patil said he had opposed the prosecution’s demand to treat the teen as an adult, citing some case laws.
“We had cited a Supreme Court judgment in which the court has defined what is a heinous crime. The guidelines from the Supreme Court are binding on everyone. But the plea by prosecution is contrary to the top court’s judgment. We demanded that since the plea is contrary to the SC’s guidelines, it is not maintainable,” he said.
To define a crime as heinous, the prosecution must have a section (invoked) that carries a minimum punishment of seven years, the counsel said. “In the present case, not a single section is there which has a minimum punishment of seven years. So, we had questioned how is this plea maintainable,” he added.
