He was old enough to drive in crazy speeds on the roads of Delhi and kill a man, but cannot be given the appropriate sentence for it, because he was not old enough!The Supreme Court has ruled that the accused in the infamous 2016 Mercedes hit and run case will be tried as a juvenile.?
The accused who is 22 years old now was just four days short of turning 18 on April 4, 2016, when he took his father's Mercedes for a joyride and mowed down Siddharth Sharma, a 32-year-old marketing professional who was crossing the road in the Civil Lines area.?
Despite the fact that the juvenile was a repeat offender and was fined thrice before for traffic violations, twice for speeding and once for parking wrongly, the Supreme Court on Thursday said that the crime should not be treated as heinous but "serious" and he should be tried as a child under juvenile law and not as an adult in a court of law.?
Even after the hit and run incident, the family had allegedly tried to implicate their driver, claiming that he was behind the wheels at the time of the accident.
A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said that an offence which does not provide a minimum sentence of seven years cannot be treated to be a heinous offence.The apex court said the scheme of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 is that children should be protected and treating children as adults is an exception to the rule.?
'It is also a well settled principle of statutory interpretation that normally an exception has to be given a restricted meaning,' the bench said.?
The accused was charged under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and the offence is punishable with a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life or up to 10 years and fine in the first part and imprisonment up to 10 years or fine, or both in the second part.?
However, no minimum sentence is prescribed.As per the Juvenile Justice Act, a juvenile can be tried as an adult only in cases of 'heinous' offences where the minimum punishment is seven years in jail.?
The Juvenile Justice Board in its 2016 order held that the accused has committed a heinous offence, and, therefore should be tried as an adult.The Delhi High Court, however, ruled against it and held that since no minimum sentence is prescribed for the offence, the said offence did not fall within the ambit of Section 2(33) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.?
Challenging the Delhi High Court order, the sister of 32-year-old marketing executive had moved the apex court.?
The top court said the Juvenile Justice Act does not deal with the offence where the maximum sentence is more than seven years imprisonment, but no minimum sentence or minimum sentence of less than 7 years is provided, shall be treated as 'serious offences' and dealt with accordingly till Parliament takes the call on the matter.