Supreme Court Grants Interim Bail To Accused After 5 Years Of Detention In Gurugram School Murder Case

The order was passed by a bench comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and JK Maheshwari, who ruled that continued detention of the accused till completion of trial may have adverse effects on him.

Pradyuman Thakur

Source : ABP

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday granted interim bail to the juvenile accused in the murder case of a seven-year-old student in Gurugram’s Ryan International School in 2017, news agency ANI reported.

The order was passed by a bench comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and JK Maheshwari, who ruled that continued detention of the accused till completion of trial may have adverse effects on him.

The accused, who was 16-years-old during the time of the incident, was in the custody for the last five years. The bail has been granted on terms as imposed by Sessions Judge, Gurugram and the accused will remain under constant supervision of the probation officer.

The bench said that if there is any shortcoming in the conduct of the petitioner, the probation officer shall be free to report it to the sessions judge who shall forward the information to the top court.

It is to be noted that recently, the Juvenile Justice Board had ruled that the accused must be tried as an adult. This was done after a medical test of the accused ruled out mental illness, after which a judge said that the juvenile was mentally capable of committing the offence.

The accused, who was a class 11 student back then, had allegedly murdered a class two student of the same school, seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur, picked at random to delay a forthcoming examination and a parent-teacher meeting.

According to reports, the seven-year-old student was found outside the school's washroom with his throat slit on September 8, 2017.

The Gurgaon Police had arrested a school bus conductor immediately for the murder. However, a month later, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which was handed over the case arrested the accused, saying he had confessed to killing the class 2 student.

However, the boy's father had later alleged that the confession was extracted from his son by torture. He said that his son had been "hung upside down and brutally thrashed".

Trial in the case is scheduled to begin on October 31.