In 2017 Gurugram School Murder Case, SC Says 'Juvenility of Accused be Examined Afresh'

The Supreme Court Wednesday said a juvenile accused of killing a seven-year-old child at a private school in Haryana’s Gurugram district in 2017 be examined afresh to ascertain whether he should be tried as an adult or not for the alleged crime.

A bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Vikram Nath dismissed the appeals filed by the father of the deceased child challenging the October 11, 2018 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The top court also asked the Centre and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to issue guidelines regarding such matters.

The high court had set aside a lower court order which said the 16-year-old student, accused of killing the child over a year ago, will be treated as an adult during the trial.

The high court observed that the procedure adopted by the lower court to declare that the accused be tried as an adult cannot be sustained in the eyes of law and therefore, the order is being set aside with the observation that it shall be remanded back to the JJ Board for taking a fresh view on the same, advocate Sushil Tekriwal, representing the victim’s family, had said.

The CBI, in a charge sheet, had alleged that the teenager had murdered the student on September 8, 2017, in a bid to get the examinations postponed and a scheduled parent-teacher meeting cancelled. The victim’s body, with the throat slit, was found in the washroom of the school in the Bhondsi area in Gurgaon.

Earlier, the court had barred the media from using the name of the 16-year-old juvenile accused in the case and asked it to use fictitious names instead. While the seven-year-old victim was named “Prince” by the court, the juvenile accused was named “Bholu” and the school was referred to as “Vidyalaya”. The probe agency had earlier given a clean chit to school bus conductor Ashok Kumar, who was arrested by the Gurgaon Police, saying there was no evidence to prove his involvement in the crime.

The CBI had taken up the case from the Gurgaon police on September 22, 2017, following a nationwide uproar over the gruesome killing.

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