Varun Thakur, father of 7-year-old Pradyuman, student of Ryan International School, who was found dead at the school toilet, had submitted an application for a CBI investigation into the death of his son. Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal
A Gurgaon court on Monday denied bail to a 16-year-old student, accused of killing 7-year-old Pradhuman Thakur at Ryan International School. On Saturday, Additional Sessions Judge Jasbir Singh Kundu had reserved the order after hearing arguments of the counsel for the accused, the CBI and the complainant. The accused had filed a bail application in this regard.
The defence counsel had claimed the charge sheet in the matter was not filed within one month, as prescribed in the Juvenile Justice Act, and he was not given required documents. Opposing the contention, the CBI had said that the mandatory period for filing a charge sheet is 90 days under CrPC provisions. The counsel for the CBI said that “circumstances have changed” as the accused had been declared an adult by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB). Therefore, the charge sheet needed to be filed within three months, news agency PTI had reported.
Pradhuman was found with his throat slit in the school’s washroom on September 8 last year. Initially, Gurgaon Police had claimed the crime was committed by a school bus conductor, but the CBI later refuted the charge. The probe agency had claimed the teenager had killed Pradhuman in a bid to get the school closed so that a parent-teacher meeting and an examination could be deferred.
If convicted, the accused will stay in a correctional home till he is 21 years old after which the court can shift him to a jail or grant him bail, it had said. The board had earlier rejected the bail plea of the Class 11 Ryan International School student. It had set up a committee which included a psychologist from the PGI, Rohtak, for an expert opinion on the accused, who was taken into custody by the CBI in November 2017, a PTI report said.
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 lowers the age of juveniles from 18 years to 16 years for heinous crimes such as rape, murder and dacoity-cum-murder, which warrant at least seven years of imprisonment. However, the JJB first decides whether the crime was “child-like” or was it committed in an “adult frame of mind”, following which it orders the accused to be tried as juvenile or adult.