Jubilee Hills gangrape case: Telangana HC sets aside order to treat juvenile accused as an adult

HYDERABAD: The juvenile court order treating one of the accused minors in the 2022 Jubilee Hills gang rape case as an adult, has been set aside by the Telangana high court. The court sent the matter back to the fifth additional chief metropolitan magistrate-cum-principal magistrate of Juvenile Justice Board "for a fresh preliminary inquiry".
The court also instructed that the juvenile be supplied with copies of documents, including an FIR copy, statements of witnesses and other relevant papers, as per the Juvenile Justice Rules, 2016 and be given the opportunity to respond.
On June 2, 2022, six boys - five minors and one adult - were arrested by Jubilee Hills police for allegedly misbehaving with a minor girl outside an upscale pub. Of five juveniles, four were charged with raping the girl inside a car at Jubilee Hills Road No 44 while the fifth, who was the son of an MLA, was accused of outraging her modesty.
On September 30, 2022, the JJ Board, in a preliminary assessment order passed against four minor accused under Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, ordered they be treated as majors. The order was challenged by the juvenile's father, a key official with a government-linked body. The counsel representing the minor argued order was contrary to provisions of juvenile justice care and "was passed with complete non-application of mind and in a mechanical manner, without following due procedure of law".
The board "should have sought a social investigation report prepared by the probation officer and took findings into account", the counsel said. "The preliminary assessment report examination and interaction of magistrate with minor accused were concluded in one day on September 28, 2022, which lacks basic details such as time of commencement, time consumed for interaction and psychological test methods adopted to record such findings. Both courts are unscientific, vague, incomplete and bereft of material details," counsel said.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)