Crime and Punishment

IF BAIL ORDERS don’t become public then sometimes the chances of an accused staying free can be greater. Like in the case of the 17-year-old who killed two people in Pune while driving drunk without a licence in a Porsche. The optics of this concat­enation of damning conditions would be enough to incite public anger. The Juvenile Justice Board that gave bail didn’t do him any favours either when among the conditions was writing a 300-word essay and paying a visit to the RTO to understand its functions— a lot like school projects that teenagers driving Porsches never get around to doing. It is especially the essay that seems to have touched a raw nerve because the word keeps popping up in all the outraged online posts and media discussions. Journaling does have its uses but when it comes to mak­ing amends for the death of two people, it is a poor substitute. The case also exposes the undercurrent feeling that in India people with privilege can get away with anything so long as there exists some loophole in the law that the system never seems to offer the poor or powerless. As it turned out, his bail was cancelled following the wide­spread publicity of the case fuelled by the bail conditions.

Remember the Nirbhaya case where the rapist-murderers were hung except for one who is now free because he was just short of 18 when the crime was committed and hence could only be tried as a juvenile. He only served three years imprisonment. Those who are not adults don’t get the same punishment as adults precisely because it is thought they don’t understand the consequences of actions as adults do. Every modern society adheres to this principle. Adulthood comes with greater rights and consequences. That is why those below 18 are also not allowed to drink or drive, and so the father who gave him the car and the pub that served him the alcohol are all now being prosecuted. What then should be the appropriate punishment for juveniles on the border?

After the Nirbhaya case, the law has been tweaked so that in excep­tions, they can be treated as adults. In the present case, too, in the face of the publicity and anger, that is what will probably happen. But it is a tricky path to tread on. There is good argument for lowering the age of being considered a juvenile from below 18 to below 15 or 14, but to make it an act of discretion dependent on the crime goes against the rationale of why juveniles aren’t considered adults. Can a human being be both an adult and a juvenile at the same time depending on what the rest of society thinks of him? Also, once discretion becomes an element in any system, then the probability of its abuse becomes greater. What will stop poor and powerless 17-year-olds, for instance, from being treated as adults even when they aren’t accused of hei­nous crimes?

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