SC Refuses Bail To Teen Accused of Killing Minor In Gurugram School In 2017 [Read Order]
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant bail to a teenager accused of killing a 7-year old boy at a Gurugram school in 2017. A 3-judge bench comprising of Justices RF Nariman, Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee found no grounds to interfere with the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had denied bail for the accused in June this year. "Since the petitioner is...
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to grant bail to a teenager accused of killing a 7-year old boy at a Gurugram school in 2017.
A 3-judge bench comprising of Justices RF Nariman, Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee found no grounds to interfere with the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had denied bail for the accused in June this year.
"Since the petitioner is now being tried for the purposes of bail only as an adult, we see no reason to interfere with the impugned judgment of the High Court at this stage. Accordingly, the Special Leave Petition is dismissed", Ordered the Apex Court.
The High Court had taken note of an Order passed by the Supreme Court on February 28, 2019 wherein it was directed that the petitioner be dealt with as an adult for the purposes of deciding bail applications. "Therefore, there is little scope for this court to find out whether the petitioner can be granted the relief under Section 12 of Juvenile Justice Act", recorded the High Court while refusing bail in June.
Challenging this decision in his SLP before the Top Court, the accused submitted that the High Court had wrongly considered that there might be a possibility of him tampering with evidence if let out on bail.
However, the CBI opposed this plea asserting that the JJ Act could not be invoked to sidestep justice in this case where the teen did not deserve leniency given the nature of the crime. The victim's father also opposed bail on the ground that the boy would be in a position to tamper with evidence if allowed to walk out on bail.
Having considered the submissions of the parties and considering the High Court's Order, the Bench dismissed the SLP.
On September 8, 2017, a Class-2 student, Prince (name given by Court), was found dead, with his throat slit, inside the toilet of a well-known private school in Gurugram. Amidst a nation-wide uproar, the Haryana Police took up the investigation and booked a bus conductor for killing the minor.
On September 22, the CBI took over the investigation from the Haryana Police. The agency arrested 16-year old 'Bholu' (name given by Court) who was a Class-11 student in the same school and later filed a charge sheet alleging him to be behind the killing of 'Prince'.
The conductor was given a clean chit on account of a lack of evidence to prove his involvement in the matter.
[Read Order]