Court accepts Ruby is minor, to be shifted to remand home
Patna,(BiharTimes): In a major embarrassment to the police the Special Vigilance court judge Raghvendra Kumar Singh on Monday accepted that Ruby Rai, the Plus-2 ‘topper’ of the Bihar School Examination Board is a minor, thus paving the way for her shifting from Beur model jail to a remand home..
The court accepted her age on the basis of her matriculation certificate which mentioned her date of birth as November 15, 1998.
Former member of the Juvenile Justice Board K D Mishra, who appeared in the court in favour of Ruby, presented her matriculation certificate to claim that she is a minor.
The lawyer of the BSEB did not oppose her matriculation certificate.
It needs to be recalled that the Special Vigilance Court on Thursday directed police and the BSEB to verify the provisional matriculation certificate of Ruby Rai which states her date of birth as November 15, 1998. Thus she was 17 years, 7 months and 10 days old on June 25, the day she was arrested.
As Ruby’s parents are absconding a non-government organisation Prayas Juvenile Aide Centre took up her cause.
“On Wednesday, we had produced her admission form in the court as her age proof. However, the court had asked us to bring concrete evidence and hence we appeared today (Thursday) with her original provisional certificate of the matriculation exams. The court has told the police and BSEB to get the document verified by Monday," Suresh Kumar, the state programme director of Prayas Juvenile Aide Centre, was quoted in the media on Thursday.
The national general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Vinay Kanth, also came down heavily on police on this count. Several senior lawyers have also flayed the way the police had conducted the whole exercise.
