Court defers hearing on case of 7-year-old schoolboy's death

A sessions court here today deferred till February 17 the hearing on a case relating to the alleged killing of a seven-year-old boy in a private school at Bhondsi.
Additional Sessions Judge Jasbir Singh Kundu adjourned the matter after the court was informed that the CBI counsel was not available.
The court had, on January 22, posted the matter for hearing today due to the non-availability of the judge concerned.
Earlier, the court had barred the media from using the name of the 16-year-old juvenile accused in the case and asked it to use fictitious names instead.
While the seven-year-old victim was named "Prince" by the court, the juvenile accused was named "Bholu" and the school was referred to as "Vidyalaya".

On January 8, the court had rejected the bail plea of the juvenile accused, imposed a cost of Rs 21,000 for "wasting the court's time" in baseless litigation and directed his father to deposit the amount.

The victim's body was found with the throat slit in the washroom of the school on September 8 last year.
The Gurgaon police had claimed that the crime was committed by a school bus conductor. This was subsequently refuted by the CBI.
The central probe agency had claimed that the juvenile accused had killed the child in a bid to get the school closed, so that a parent-teacher meeting and an examination could be deferred.

The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) had, on December 20, held that the teenager would be tried as an adult and directed that he be produced before the Gurgaon Sessions Court.
It had also noted that the accused was mature enough to understand the consequences of his actions.
If convicted, the accused would be lodged in a correctional home till he turned 21, after which the court could shift him to a jail or grant him bail, the board had said.
According to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, the age-limit of a juvenile would be lowered from 18 years to 16 years for heinous crimes such as rape, murder and dacoity-cum-murder, which warranted at least seven years of imprisonment.

However, the JJB first decides if the crime was "child- like" or committed in an "adult frame of mind", following which it orders the accused to be tried as a juvenile or an adult.