New Delhi: An intensive medical examination ruling out mental illness, statements from his classmates affirming his intention to ‘poison’ someone at school and his personal interaction with a judge confirmed that the juvenile in conflict with law was mentally capable of committing an offence.
These are the three reasons why the juvenile justice board (JJB) Monday held that the accused who allegedly killed a 7-year-old boy, Pradyuman Thakur, at an international school in Gurugram in 2017 should not be tried as a juvenile but as an adult under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Trial in the case is set to begin on 31 October.
In case the JJB would have held otherwise, the boy would have faced proceedings under the special Juvenile Justice Act (JJA), which is not a penal law, but provides for the reformation of a juvenile-in-conflict-with law. When sentenced under this law, a juvenile can be kept in a correctional home for not more than three years.
But now, if found guilty, the juvenile can be sentenced to a lengthier term, barring life imprisonment and the death penalty.
The boy was 16 at the time of his arrest in November 2017, two months after the case was handed over to the CBI.
In December of that year, the JJB had held that the boy should be tried as an adult.
However, the JJB’s order was challenged by the juvenile before the Punjab and Haryana HC, which set it aside in June 2018. The high court’s verdict was challenged in the SC by the victim’s family that same year and trial in the case was put on hold.
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Why SC ordered re-evaluation
Advocate Sushil Tekriwal, counsel for the victim’s family told ThePrint that the JJB order was pronounced after a detailed re-evaluation of the boy that included an assessment of his mental and physical capacity to carry out the killing.
This re-evaluation was done following the Supreme Court’s order of 13 July this year, which directed the JJB to undertake the exercise.
The top court gave two reasons for sending the matter back to the JJB.
First, the boy was not examined by a panel of three medical experts, which the top court had mandated under JJA. And second, the apex court found fault with the method of mental assessment, saying the board had ascertained his Intelligent Quotient (IQ), which was not equivalent to proving his ability to understand the consequences of the crime.
On the basis of this order, JJB asked the Institute of Mental Health, Rohtak to conduct a detailed clinical assessment of the boy. A three-member board comprising a psychologist, psychiatrist and clinical physician held the test for which the juvenile was made to stay at the institute for two days.
Later, the juvenile was also made to interact with the JJB judge, who then perused the CBI chargesheet filed against him that contained witness statements of the juvenile’s classmates recorded on oath.
On examining the medical panel’s report, the JJB judge opined that there is nothing “forthcoming” in the medical board’s report to show that the boy was suffering from any parental neglect or lack of supervision. Rather, the report suggested that he belonged to upper-socio-economic strata, had access to all basic necessities, was loved by his family members, lived in a healthy family environment, had never been exposed to any physical or mental trauma or was under any kind of adverse peer influence.
“Thus, it can be safely concluded that the child in conflict with law was having sufficient mental and physical capacity to commit the offence,” the order noted.
During his personal interaction with the juvenile, the JJB judge learnt that the boy enjoyed a healthy relationship with his parents. Moreover, his parents used to motivate him for studies, the order said.
The JJB judge then perused the CBI chargesheet and found that the boy had made various internet searches about poisoning and its effects and sources. Statements given by his schoolmates — claiming that the boy had asked them to procure poison for him so that he may administer it to any student of the school to get the exam postponed or parents-teacher meeting — further supported the CBI theory that the alleged murder was pre-planned.
“Thus, searches made prior to the incident and the statement so recorded shows that the juvenile was well aware that poison, if given to someone, can result in his/her death,” the JJB held.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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