In a setback for the trustees of Ryan International School, the Bombay High Court rejected their anticipatory transit bail plea in a case involving the murder of a Class 2 student at their Gurugram branch and asked them to surrender their passports by 9pm on Thursday.
The court also said that the interim relief provided till Friday 5 pm to the three trusties– Augustine F. Pinto, Grace Pinto and Ryan Pinto will be stand canceled if they failed to deposit their passports to the Commissioner of Police, Mumbai.
The court had on Wednesday adjourned the hearing in the anticipatory bail plea after an intervention application — filed by the father of seven-year-old Pradhyuman Thakur, who was murdered inside the Haryana school on September 8 — seeking dismissal of the anticipatory transit bail plea.
Varun Chandra Thakur intervened through his lawyers Sushil K. Tekriwal and Mamta Tekriwal in the hearing of the bail plea of the three school trustees.
The trustees of the St. Xaviers Education Trust, which manages the Ryan International Schools across India, filed the plea on Monday.
Pradhyuman was found with his throat slit inside the school’s washroom within an hour after his father dropped him off last Friday morning.
The case has snowballed into a major national issue concerning safety and security of children in private schools, with vociferous protests by parents and activists outside the Ryan schools in several states including Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.
(With inputs from agencies)