Gurugram student murder: CBI fails to file supplementary charge sheet

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday failed to file a supplementary charge sheet in the murder of a Class 2 student allegedly by a teenager at a private school in Gurugram last year.

CBI told a sessions court that it had sought a transfer of the case to the CBI special court in Panchkula and that the Punjab and Haryana high court is likely to hear its plea on July 26.

The agency was due to file a supplementary charge sheet in the case in the sessions court on Wednesday after it got an extension at the last hearing on May 14.

Additional sessions judge Jasbir Singh Kundu, who had been hearing the matter, also passed a reference order on July 2 asking the district and sessions judge to transfer the case to the CBI special court in Panchkula. The district and sessions judge took up the reference during the hearing on Wednesday and directed that the matter be heard on July 30 after the high court decides on CBI’s plea for a transfer.

“The judge told CBI officials that the delay in the case has been due to them. He directed the matter to be heard on July 30 after the high court hears the transfer petition of CBI on July 26. Based on their order, further proceedings will take place in the court,” the father of the murdered boy said.

Meanwhile, the additional sessions judge was on leave, the father added.

The eight-year-old boy was found with his throat slit in a toilet at the private school in Gurugram in September last year. In November, the CBI arrested a Class 11 student of the same school as a suspect in the murder. Investigators said the older student committed the murder to delay examinations and a parent-teacher committee meeting.

Family members of the murdered boy said a transfer will further delay the case, which has been progressing at a slow pace. While the suspect has been denied bail by the sessions court and the high court, the trial in the case is yet to start.

The father alleged that CBI was delaying the charge-sheet and had not handed over the CCTV footage of the school premises to the family of the juvenile suspect despite the court asking the agency to do so by July 4.

Sumeet Goel, CBI’s lawyer in the petition filed in the high court, said, “There are several notifications which give power to the CBI special judge to try offences even of child cases related to POCSO (Act) and juvenile crime cases. Therefore there is no impediment under the law that the matter cannot get transferred from Gurugram to Panchkula.” POSCO Act is short for Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.