Pune Porsche case: Is it not confinement if juvenile is kept in custody after bail, asks HC
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Friday queried if it amounted to confinement when the juvenile accused in the Pune Porsche case was granted bail but was taken back in custody and kept in an observation home.
A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande said there was no denying that the accident was unfortunate.
“Two people have lost their lives. There was trauma but the child (juvenile) was also in trauma,” the court said.
The bench also questioned the police under what provision of law, the order granting bail to the minor accused in the Porsche accident case was amended and how he has been kept in “confinement”.
In the early hours of May 19, the juvenile was allegedly driving a Porsche car at very high speed in an intoxicated state when the vehicle crashed into a bike, killing two software engineers – Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta – in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar.
The 17-year-old was granted bail the same day by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), which ordered that he be kept under the care and supervision of his parents and grandfather. He was also asked to write a 300-word essay on road safety.
Amid a nationwide uproar over the quick bail, the police appealed to the JJB to amend the bail order. On May 22, the board ordered the boy to be taken into custody and remanded him to an observation home.
Last week, the teenager’s paternal aunt filed a habeas corpus (produce person) petition claiming that he was illegally detained and sought his immediate release.
The bench, while hearing the arguments in the plea on Friday, noted that till date, the police have not filed any application before a higher court seeking cancellation of the bail order passed by the JJB.
Instead, an application was filed seeking amendment of the bail order, HC said, adding that based on this application, the bail order was amended, the boy was taken in custody and remanded to an observation home.
“What type of remand is this? What is the power to remand? What kind of procedure is this where a person has been granted bail and then a remand is passed taking him in custody,” the court said.
The bench added that the minor was taken away from the care and supervision of his family members and sent to an observation home.
“He is a person who has been granted bail, but now he has been confined to an observation home. Is this not confinement? We would like to know your source of power,” HC said.
The bench said it also expected the Juvenile Justice Board to be responsible.
The court questioned why the police did not move an application for cancellation of the bail.
The court reserved its order on the plea and said it would be passed on Tuesday (June 25).
Public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar submitted that the remand orders passed by the board were all valid and hence no interference was required.
On May 19, Venegaonkar said, the JJB bail order was “rightly or wrongly” passed, and also the blood samples of the juvenile were tampered with.
“Action has been taken against the errant officers and doctors. We have to send a strong message to society. Just writing a 300-word essay is not enough,” Venegaonkar said.
Senior counsel Aabad Ponda argued that the boy's fundamental rights were violated.
“A free citizen's personal liberty has been trampled upon. Can a child be taken in custody when he has been granted bail and the bail order is in force," Ponda said.
He added that there was no provision under the law where such a review of a bail order can be sought and passed.
“You cannot turn back the clock. Had bail been refused, CCL could have been sent to an observation home. But having been granted bail how can he be sent back to an observation home,” Ponda said.
The senior counsel said such things are not even done in serious offences under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act and Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. How the police can do this in a juvenile's case, he asked.
The boy's aunt in the plea claimed that because of the public uproar coupled with “political agenda”, the police deviated from the right course of investigation concerning the minor thus defeating the entire purpose of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
The teenager is currently in an observation home till June 25.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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