Bombay HC adjourns Ryan trustees bail plea till afternoon

Mumbai, Sep 13 (IANS) The Bombay High Court on Wednesday adjourned till afternoon the hearing in the anticipatory bail plea filed by Ryan International School trustees in a case involving the murder of a Class 2 student at their Gurugram branch.

The adjournment follows 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 filed by the school trustees.

Barun Chandra Thakur intervened through his lawyers Sushil K. Tekriwal and Mamta Tekriwal in the hearing of the bail plea of the three school trustees -- Augustine F. Pinto, Grace Pinto and Ryan Pinto.

The bail plea by the trustees of the St. Xaviers Education Trust -- which manages the Ryan International Schools across India was filed apprehending arrest on Monday.

The Pinto family had applied for the anticipatory transit bail to move an appropriate judicial authority in Haryana -- which came up for hearing on Tuesday when the court posted it for Wednesday.

Pradhyuman was found with his throat slit inside the school's washroom within an hour after his father dropped him off last Friday morning.

A Haryana Police team on Tuesday questioned several staffers and manager of the Ryan International School at the Kandivali headquarters, examined documents and records.

However, the three main trustees remained elusive and the details of the other trustees were not known.

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.