Gurugram pvt school murder: CBI argues for treating suspect as adult

On July 13, the Supreme Court ordered that the juvenile accused be examined afresh to ascertain whether he should be tried as an adult or minor and referred the case back to the JJB

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday told the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), hearing the case of a seven-year-old boy’s murder at a private school in Gurugram in 2017, that the juvenile accused in the case must be tried as an adult.

The accused, who was 16 years old at that time, turned 21 this April 3. (Representative image/Getty Images)

The CBI’s argument comes on the heels of a report submitted by a board of experts from Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak, in which they said “there is no valid test or examination that can retrospectively determine the medical capacity, maturity and ability of the accused”.

On October 1, the JJB board members also separately assessed the accused for over four hours to get a clarity on his mental state.

The next hearing will take place on October 6 when the JJB will hear arguments from the counsels for the victim and the accused, before it decides on whether the accused will be tried as a juvenile or an adult.

The boy, a class 2 student, was found with his throat slit on September 8, 2017, inside the toilet of the private school where he studied. The CBI apprehended a class 12 student of the same school for the murder. The accused, who was 16 years old at that time, turned 21 this April 3.

On July 13, the Supreme Court ordered that the juvenile accused be examined afresh to ascertain whether he should be tried as an adult or minor and referred the case back to the JJB.

Dr Joginder Singh Kairo, senior clinical psychologist and a board member, said the accused was admitted to the psychiatry department of PGIMS Rohtak on September 22 for a detailed assessment over two days. “During his stay there, he was observed and assessed, including a detailed psychological profiling and serial mental status examination. No active psychopathology was found at present,” he said.

Kairo said the board also perused reports of all previous psychological assessments of the accused. “The suspect underwent tests such as bender visual motor gestalt test to assess visual-motor functioning, verbal adult intelligence scale to track verbal intelligence, the Wechsler adult intelligence scale to assess cognitive ability and the 16PF test to ascertain personality traits,” he said.

The experts’ report stated that at present, there is no evidence of physical or mental illness or intellectual impairment in the accused and he has sufficient maturity and ability to understand the consequence of the alleged offence.

“There have been a number of inconsistencies in the documented information and current interviews, so no valid conclusions can be drawn. There is no valid test or examination with reasonable scientific certainty that can retrospectively determine the medical capacity, maturity and ability to understand the consequences of the offence at the time of the commission of the offence as required by the court,” stated the report.

Kairo said the tests conducted revealed the accused to have an IQ (intelligence quotient) of 92 , which falls in the category of average intelligence and “zero intellectual impairment”.

“The accused’s personality test included abstract reasoning and cognitive ability and he showed signs of low frustration tolerance, besides fatigue and fretfulness. He also appeared to be less emotionally stable and easily offended, soft minded, apprehensive, self-condemning, insecure, anxious and full of forebodings and anxiety,” Kairo said.

Sushil Tekriwal, counsel for the victim family, said all assessment reports state that the mental state of suspect is that of an adult. “There are variations in the statements given by the suspect before the investigating agencies when he was apprehended. He was clever enough then and no assessment or test can prove that his brain was that of a juvenile and not an adult,“ he said.

Tekriwal said the CBI counsel argued that the evidence collected by their team were enough to establish that the accused was mature enough to plan a murder. “Technical evidence and statement recorded before the CBI and JJB principal magistrate, which he later retracted, show that he is smart enough to twist facts,” he said.

Neither the counsel for the accused nor the accused’s father responded to calls and messages seeking their comment.