Juvenile accused to be tried as an adult

GURUGRAM: A 16-year-old accused in a Gurugram school murder case will be tried as an adult, a special children’s court ruled on Monday. The Class 11 student of a private school in Gurugram’s Bhondsi is accused of slitting the throat of a Class 2 student in a toilet on September 8 last year.

The court upheld the Juvenile Justice Board’s (JJB) order of December 20 last year and dismissed the appeal challenging it. The court also dismissed two other petitions challenging the permission granted to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take the accused into custody and to procure fresh fingerprints.

The counsel for the accused had challenged the JJB order, saying it was “bad in law” and passed without giving him a proper opportunity to present his case.

Delivering the verdict on Monday, additional sessions judge JS Kundu termed the crime as “heinous”.

Unhappy with the order, the father of the juvenile accused said he will file a writ petition in the high court against the court order. “My son is innocent and I will not leave any stone unturned to save him,” the father of the accused said.

After an amendment in the Juvenile Justice Act, 2016, the Juvenile Justice Board in Gurugram has so far declared 38 juveniles would be tried as adults; trials in 31 cases are going on and seven convictions have taken place so far.