The Allahabad High Court has refused to grant bail to a 15-year-old boy accused of stabbing his 14-year-old cousin repeatedly when she was sleeping in her home at night.
A bench of Justice JJ Munir dismissed the bail plea of the minor boy from Ghaziabad, saying "the manner and the circumstances in which the crime has been committed, places the tranquillity of the society at a serious level of threat".
The court, however, directed the Ghaziabad's children court to expedite the boy's trial and conclude it within three months.
Seeking bail for the boy, his counsel argued that his client is a young offender, aged a little less than 15 years, with no past criminal antecedents.
Quoting the provision of section 12(1) of the Juvenile Justice Act, he argued that a juvenile offender has a right to the bail which can be denied only in exceptional cases.
The prosecution counsel, however, opposed the plea, saying that if the accused is enlarged on bail, it would lead to the "ends of justice being defeated".
After hearing arguments from both sides, the court observed, "No doubt, in the case of a juvenile, bail is to be granted as a matter of course, but the legislature has distinctly engrafted three exceptions to the rule of universal bail."
"Circumstances of the crime show that the revisionist, for whatever reason, entered the living quarters of his uncle (father's brother), and stabbed his cousin, the victim, while the other family members were around," the court said.
"He did so when the victim was asleep at one am in the night. The evidence about the attack, that the medico-legal report shows, discloses a determined and dastardly attack, to do the victim to death. There are nine incised wounds sustained by the victim on various parts of her body, including the front of the neck," the court said.
The case dated back to June 17, 2019 when a man belonging to the Sihani Gate police station area lodged a complaint against his brother's minor son that he had stabbed his daughter repeatedly when he was asleep on the earlier night.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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