The Supreme Court on Thursday granted interim bail to the youth accused of killing his seven-year-old schoolmate in the 2017 Gurugram school murder case. The 21-year-old man who was 16 years old at the time of the incident, has been in detention for the last five years.
A bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and J K Maheshwari said the continued detention of the accused until completion of the trial may have adverse effects on him. “Accordingly, the prayer for interim relief is granted and until further orders of this court, that is by way of interim measure, the petitioner appellant be released on bail on conditions as may be imposed by sessions judge Gurugram.”
“The Child in Conflict with Law will remain under continued supervision of probation officer,” the order said. “It is also made clear that the petitioner and his parents would be expected not to create hindrance in the trial of the case and for that matter will not try to contact or communicate with any of the witnesses…,” the bench said.
The accused, “Bholu”, was accused of killing “Prince”, a fellow student of a private school in Gurugram. The student was found dead, with the throat slit, in the washroom of the school in the Bhondsi area on September 8, 2017.
The initial probe led the police to make a bus driver the prime suspect in the incident and was sent to jail. However, when CBI took charge of the investigation following a massive uproar over the gruesome killing, “Bholu”, then a Class 11 student of the same school, was found allegedly to have killed the boy in a bid to get the examinations postponed and a scheduled parent-teacher meeting cancelled. The then 16-year-old boy was taken into custody.
The accused was granted bail days after the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) said the youth will be tried as an adult, sticking to its earlier ruling.
The Supreme Court had in July this year upheld the October 11, 2018 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the juvenile be examined afresh to ascertain whether he should be tried as an adult or not for the alleged crime. The high court had set aside a lower court order which had in May 2018 upheld the JJB’s earlier decision that the juvenile should be tried as an adult.
Earlier this month, the Juvenile Justice Board had also attested copies of the psychiatric evaluation of the accused to the defence and the prosecution. The board had asked doctors at PGI Rohtak to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of the accused to determine whether he can be held responsible for his actions.
Sushil Tekriwal, counsel for the victim, said there were many inconsistencies in old reports, citing the report of the board of psychiatrists of PGI Rohtak. “Due to many inconsistencies in old reports of the accused and assessments, no valid conclusion can be drawn as to what was his state of mind at the time of the incident,” he had said.
After the interim-bail order, Advocate Tekriwal said, “We will endeavour our best to get the trial conducted expeditiously and not leave any stone unturned to get the conviction in the case.”
The top court will now hear the matter in January 2023.
(With inputs from PTI)
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