Mercedes hit-and-run case: Case to be heard by sessions court

A Delhi court today transferred to a sessions court a case against the parents of a teenager who is accused of fatally running over a 32-year-old man while driving his father's Mercedes last year.
Metropolitan Magistrate Shefali Barnala Tandon committed the case to a sessions court for further proceedings after the counsel for the accused told the court that the copies of documents supplied to them along with the charge sheet were complete.
The case file would be put up on May 20 before the district judge who would mark it to the court of an additional sessions judge.
The court had earlier taken cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the Delhi Police against the teenager's parents Manoj Aggarwal (53) and Indu Aggarwal (45) and driver Kapil Kumar Mishra (42), who is also an accused in the case.

The police in its final report has claimed that the parents had "intentionally aided" the wrong act by allowing their son, who was a minor at the time of incident, to drive.
Advocate Jinendra Jain, who represented the parents, had said no offence is made out against them and when the boy had no intention to kill the victim, where was the question of parents abetting the offence. He claimed that the teenager had tried to save the victim.

A separate case against the teenager, who turned major four days after the April 4, 2016 accident, is going on before a sessions court here.

The sessions court is at the stage of hearing arguments on framing of charges and on an appeal filed by the teenager challenging an order of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) holding that the boy would face trial as an adult.
According to the police, the teenager had fatally run over victim Siddharth Sharma with his father's Mercedes when the victim was trying to cross a road near Ludlow Castle School in north Delhi on April 4 last year.
The vehicle was registered in the name of a company owned by his parents Manoj and Indu Aggarwal.
The plea claimed that the teenager was a repeat offender and he had been driving the vehicle with the consent of his parents.

By allowing their minor son to drive the car, they did an act with the knowledge that he is likely to cause death, it said.
Regarding the mother, the police has said she had never questioned her son about driving the vehicle in a routine manner and she was equally liable for abetting the offence.
The driver had earlier claimed that he was driving the Mercedes at the time of accident but had done a volte-face after he got to know that the victim was dead.
Regarding the driver, the charge sheet has said he had intentionally given false information to the police to save the teenager from punishment.

The charge sheet was filed against the three persons for allegedly abetting the offences of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, destruction of evidence and giving false information under the IPC and under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Manoj Aggarwal and Mishra were arrested and later granted bail by the court. Indu Aggarwal was also granted anticipatory bail on April 27.
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.
The JJB had on June 4 last year ordered that the boy would face trial as an adult while observing that the offence allegedly committed by him was "heinous".

It is 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.