Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday directed the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to decide afresh whether the Class XI student, accused of murdering a seven-year-old boy of his school in Bhondsi in September last year, be treated as an adult or a juvenile.
The student has been lodged in a Faridabad-based correction home since last November after the CBI, the agency investigating the case, picked him up in connection with the
murder of the Class II boy.
The high court’s direction comes in response to a petition filed by the Class XI student’s father, challenging the JJB’s earlier decision to treat the accused as an adult during the trial of the case.
On December 20 last year, the juvenile board had held that the teenager would be tried as an adult and directed the CBI to produce him before the Gurgaon sessions court. Subsequently, the sessions court had upheld the board’s decision. Aggrieved by the session court’s order, the teenager’s father had approached the high court.
Sushil Tekriwal, counsel for the slain Class II boy’s father, said they were disappointed with the order. “We are going to approach the Supreme Court,” he said.
The Class II student was found lying in a pool of blood with his throat slit inside a washroom on the Bhondsi campus on September 8 last year. Initially, the Gurgaon police had arrested bus conductor Ashok Kumar as prime accused. The police investigation had claimed that Ashok had tried to sexually assault the child in the washroom and attacked him when the boy resisted. Within hours of the murder, Ashok was arrested by cops who after a few days recovered the murder weapon — a knife — which they claimed was part of the tool kit of the bus. But, the Haryana government decided to hand over the probe to the CBI on the demand of boy’s father, who wasn’t convinced that the police had the right man.
The CBI had filed a partial chargesheet on February 5, accusing the Class XI student of slitting the throat of the seven-year-old boy of the same school apparently to postpone exams and a parent-teacher meeting. It also gave a clean chit to the bus conductor. Later, the court acquitted him of all charges.
However, the agency is yet to complete the investigation and submit a supplementary chargesheet, highlighting the role of the school administration and Gurgaon police.