In a major development in the Pune Porsche hit-and-run case, the the Bombay High Court on Tuesday ordered the release of a 17-year-old minor accused in the Portsche hit-and-run case from there and gave his custody to his paternal aunt.   More than a month after the Pune Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) remanded him to observation home, a HC division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Justice Manjusha Deshpande declared the JJB’s remand orders of May 22, June 5 and June 12 as “illegal and without jurisdiction”

Allowing a habeas corpus writ petition filed by the paternal aunt of the minor accused Pooja G. Jain, the HC bench directed that the JJB- ordered counselling sessions with a psychologist should continue post the minor's release. At a hearing held last week, the HC bench had questioned as to how the JJB could have remanded the minor accused in the Pune Porsche mishap case to an observation home when he had already been released on bail.

Apart from observing that the remand and its subsequent extension “completely nullified the effect of bail”, the high court had also questioned the source of power to remand a juvenile to an observation home once bail has already been granted. Earlier, the petitioner Puja  Jain’s lawyer, Senior Advocate Abad Ponda said that once a juvenile has been granted bail he should not have been  remanded to an observation home, and said that the bail was operative till date since the boy had not been re-arrested on any additional charges nor was the bail given to him cancelled by a higher court.