In what came as a huge mockery of India’s judiciary system, a drunk teenager, Vedant Agarwal, who rammed his overspeeding luxury car into vehicles, killing two people on May 19 in Pune, was granted bail within 15 hours of his arrest. Prashant Patil, the top celebrity lawyer hired by Agarwal’s father, Vishal Agarwal who owns the bar, stated that the honorable judge was “kind enough” to grant bail.
The conditions on which Vedant Agarwal was given bail raise eyebrows. The teenager was asked to write a 300-word essay on road accidents and create traffic awareness boards. As per the latest updates in the case, the teenage driver of the Porsche car has also been asked by the Juvenile Justice Board to work with a traffic police official for 2 weeks and attend psychiatric counseling sessions. Psychiatric counseling, for the individual responsible for the deaths of two 24-year-old IT employees due to drunk driving in an overspeeding luxury car.
The juvenile court granted bail on the assurance of the culprit’s grandfather, a grandfather with underworld connections. A report by India Today has quoted CBI sources as saying that Surendra Kumar Agarwal, the grandfather is facing trial for contracting the gangster Chhota Rajan’s shooter in 2009 to kill Shiv Sena’s Ajay Bhosale.
Such is the deplorable state of our judiciary that a rich, underage boy, driving a luxury Porsche Taycan car without any registration and driving license gets bail in a blink of an eye. Sources have revealed that Vedant Agarwal had been driving the unregistered car since March at its top speed, without any knowhow of how to control the vehicle while drunk, resulting in the death of two innocent people. However, the saddest part is that even after being booked under IPC section 304A, i.e., causing death by negligence, among other sections, the son of a rich business person was granted bail within hours, leaving the bereaved family pleading and crying for justice, that may now take months or even several years!. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first case exposing the prevalent flaw in our system.
Salman Khan Hit and Run Case: It was in 2002 when the renowned Bollywood actor killed one and severely injured three people. However, it was after eleven years, in 2013, that the first charges were laid against him. After a wait of two years, in May 2015, the court found him guilty, confirming that Salman Khan didn’t have a license until 2004. The court also found that his driver was lying that it wasn’t Khan, but him who was driving the car.
The biggest tragedy was that the prime witness in the case, Ravindra Kumar, a former official in the Mumbai Police, was isolated and mentally tortured by the Mumbai Police, forcing him to retract his statement. He was even arrested, but Kumar then died due to Tuberculosis. Then in December 2015, actor Salman Khan was acquitted in the case due to “lack of evidence”. In July 2016, the Maharashtra government filed an appeal against his acquittal which the Supreme Court accepted. However, it has now been 8 years since the appeal was filed, yet no hearing has yet taken place!
Baner Road Accident: In 2017, Sujata Shroff, a Pune builder, crashed into a median, mowing down five persons, of which two were killed, while three were critically injured. Nonetheless, Shroff was granted bail within hours, while a plea requesting the cancellation of the bail was rejected. It has been seven years since then, however, there’s no update on the case.
2016 Hit and Run Case: Head of Cosmos Bank, Mukund Abhyankar’s rash driving killed Arundhati Hasabnis in Pune in 2016. Though he was convicted 7 years later, his punishment of a mere six months imprisonment & a fine of Rs. 1200 raises questions as to whether the judiciary is providing justice to the victims or is instead making a mockery of their situation.
Bentley Crash: Driving Bentley, Asees Chadha killed 5 people in Lutyens, Delhi on 18th Feb 2019. Though he was denied bail by Patiala House on 20th Feb, a day later the Delhi Court granted him bail in the case.
There are numerous cases like these either pending or stagnated due to our laid-back judiciary system. In light of the latest road crime, we need to re-evaluate the necessity of judicial reforms.
Although amidst severe backlash, the Juvenile Justice Board on Wednesday revoked the bail granted to Vedant Agarwal, asserting that the minor must be sent to the Children Observation Centre. However, netizens believe that due to Agarwal’s well-off family and his wealthy father’s influence, Vedant Agarwal may soon secure release, leaving the victim’s family with dim hopes for justice.
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