Merc-hit-and-run: Court to hear arguments on juvenile's appeal

A Delhi court today said it would hear in May arguments on an appeal by a boy, accused of running over a 32-year-old man while driving his father's Mercedes here last year, challenging an order to try him as an adult.
Additional Sessions Judge Vimal Kumar Yadav fixed the matter for May 6 as the main counsel for the juvenile, who turned major four days after the incident last year, was not present.
The boy has challenged the June 4, 2016 decision of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) ordering that he would face trial as an adult while observing that the offence allegedly committed by him was "heinous".

Special public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava had earlier argued that as per the amended provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, the sessions court cannot send back the case to the board and if it thinks that the boy should not be tried as an adult, it has to try the case itself by acting as the board's presiding officer.
In the appeal, the boy claimed at best he could be booked for alleged offence of causing death by rash and negligent act and it was not a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for which he has been charged.

It said the boy's previous offences are of traffic violation and not related to accidents. So it's not a ground to convert section 304A of IPC into section 304 of IPC.

It was the first of its kind case since the amendment in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015 which allowed the board to transfer cases of heinous offences by children to the sessions court.
The police had on May 26, 2016 chargesheeted the boy in JJB for culpable homicide not amounting to murder which entails a maximum of 10 years jail.
Initially, a case under section 304 A of IPC was lodged but later he was booked for the alleged offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sent to reform home.

Police, in its charge sheet, had said the boy had fatally run over victim Siddharth Sharma, a marketing executive, with his father's Mercedes when Sharma was trying to cross a road near Ludlow Castle School in north Delhi on April 4 last year.
The final report was filed for alleged offences of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, driving on a public way so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life and causing hurt by an act which endangers human life under the IPC against him.
The Board had on April 26, 2016 granted bail to the youth who sought the relief to appear in entrance examinations.