The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to grant bail to a teen accused of killing a 7-year-old boy in a Gurugram school in 2017, Live Law reported. A three-judge bench headed by Justice RF Nariman said that it found no grounds to interfere with the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which denied the accused bail 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 judgement of the High Court at this stage,” the bench observed. “Accordingly, the Special Leave Petition is dismissed”
On September 8, 2017, a Class 2 student was found with his throat slit inside a washroom of the Gurugram school. An autopsy revealed injuries on the boy’s neck, inflicted by a sharp-edged weapon, were the cause of death. The Gurugram Police initially arrested a bus conductor, but the Central Bureau of Investigation detained the teenager, who was then a Class 11 student of the same school, for the crime on November 8, 2017.
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the accused killed the Class 2 student to get the school closed so that a parent-teacher meeting and an examination would be deferred.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court in June had dismissed the bail plea filed by the student. The court had taken note of an order passed by the Supreme Court on February 28, 2019 wherein it was directed that the student 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”, the High Court had observed.
The accused challenged this order in his Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court. During the hearing on Thursday, the accused argued that the High Court had erroneously considered there may be a possibility that he may tamper with evidence if was let out on bail.
The accused teen further contended that there was very little possibility of a trial to start in the near future, given the coronavirus pandemic, according to PTI.
However, the CBI opposed the bail plea saying the accused “did not deserve leniency” given the nature of the crime and contended that the Juvenile Justice Act cannot be invoked “to sidestep justice in the case”. Advocate Sushil Tekriwal, appearing for the victim’s father, also opposed the bail plea saying the accused can be a serious threat if he was allowed to walk out on bail.
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