MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has upheld the cancellation of bail granted to a 17-year-old boy accused of fatally crashing his father’s SUV into a scooter in Vidyavihar, observing that his history of performing dangerous stunts on public roads and posting videos of them on Instagram showed a serious disregard for public safety.
The court also noted that the boy had deleted videos of stunts performed on two- and four-wheelers from his Instagram account and had failed to stay at the address specified as a condition of his bail. The high court found no reason to interfere with the sessions court’s decision. The court also noted that his parents were aware of the stunts but had not stopped him.
In an order dated September 9 and made available on Wednesday, Justice Shivkumar Dige dismissed the boy’s plea challenging a sessions court order that had cancelled the bail granted to him by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).
His conduct, the court said, showed “scant respect” for lawful authority. What happened in court Meenal Patel’s lawyers, advocates Atharva Dandekar, Ruben Mascarenhas and Tejas Gupta, told the court that the boy had repeatedly performed dangerous stunts in cars and on two-wheelers and posted videos of them on a public Instagram account. The court said the conduct did not appear to be an isolated incident. “It appears from record that the applicant was in the habit of making stunts on two-wheelers and four-wheelers,” it said, noting that he had driven both before reaching the legal age to do so. The subsequent deletion of the videos, it said, “amounts to destruction of evidence”.
The court also cited the boy’s conduct after securing bail. He had been ordered to stay in Koparkhairane, but was not found there.
At the family’s Chembur home, his mother said she did not know where he was. “It shows that he has scant respect for the orders passed by lawful authority,” the court said.
