Court suggests transfer of G’gram school murder case to CBI court

The Sessions Court on Wednesday transferred the murder case of a Class II student at Ryan school in Gurugram to the court of District & Sessions Judge and urged that the case should be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court at Panchkula.  The 7-year-old boy was found with his throat slit in his school on September 8, 2017.

On July 2 a special children's court had passed a reference order to the district and session judge in connection with the case transfer to the CBI court.

 “The Investigation agency has already filed a transfer application in connection with the case before the Punjab & Haryana High Court. The hearing on the plea would be scheduled on July 26 after this hearing the Gurugram court will decide the future course of action in the case,” Sushil Tekriwal, lawyer for the seven-year-old victim, said.

Meanwhile, the CBI has asked for more time to submit a supplementary charge sheet in a the murder case. The court has give CBI time till July 30 and the next hearing has been scheduled on the same day.

The agency told the court on Wednesday that it will need more days to wrap up investigations into the case that grabbed national headlines and raised concerns about safety in Indian schools.

Earlier, special children court had on May 21 held that the 16-year-old teenager accused would be tried as an “adult” for murdering his junior schoolmate at a Gurugram school.

The CBI named the juvenile suspect, a student of Class XI, as prime accused in the case in its first charge sheet in the case in February.  The Juvenile Justice Board had on December 20 held that the teenager would be tried as an adult and directed that he be produced before the Gurugram sessions court.

Although police investigators arrested the bus conductor, Ashok Kumar, within hours of the murder, severe criticisms of their handling of the case led to the CBI taking over. The agency's investigations led to the 16-year-old boy's detention.

On February 28 this year, a special court had discharged Kumar after no evidence was found of his involvement in the case.