Gurgaon school murder: HC says 16-year-old accused will not be treated as adult

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday set aside a lower court order which said the16-year-old student, accused of killing a seven-year-old boy at a private school in Gurgaon over a year ago, will be treated as an adult during trial.

Justice Daya Chaudhary allowed the petition of the accused challenging a sessions court decision that he be tried as an adult in the case. The sessions court had upheld a Juvenile Justice Board order.

"The court set aside the judgement of the lower court which had ordered that the accused be tried as an adult in the murder case," advocate Sushil Tekriwal, representing the victim's family, said.

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," he said.

The victim's body was found with his throat slit in the school's washroom on September 8 last year. The Gurgaon Police said the crime was committed by a school bus conductor, which was refuted by the CBI after it took over the probe.

The CBI had claimed that the teenager killed the seven-year-old in a bid to get the school closed so that a scheduled parent-teacher meeting and an examination could be deferred.