2017 Gurugram school murder case: SC says examine again if accused can be tried as adult

New Delhi, July 13: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said a juvenile accused of killing a seven-year-old child at a private school in Haryana's Gurugram district in 2017 be examined afresh to ascertain whether he should be tried as an adult or not for the alleged crime.

A bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Vikram Nath dismissed the appeals filed by the father of the deceased child challenging the October 11, 2018 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The top court also asked the Centre and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to issue guidelines regarding such matters.

The high court had set aside a lower court order which said the 16-year-old student, accused of killing the child over a year ago, will be treated as an adult during trial.

The high court observed that the procedure adopted by the lower court to declare that the accused be tried as an adult "cannot be made to sustain in the eyes of law and therefore, the order is being set aside with observation that it shall be remanded back to the JJ Board for taking a fresh view on the same," advocate Sushil Tekriwal, representing the victim's family, had said.

The CBI, in a charge sheet, had alleged that the teenager had murdered the student in a bid to get the examinations postponed and a scheduled parent-teacher meeting cancelled.

The victim's body, with the throat slit, was found in the washroom of the school in Bhondsi area of Gurugram on September 8, 2017.