SC grants interim bail to 13 prisoners who were jailed for over 14 years despite being juveniles

The Supreme Court on Thursday granted interim bail to 13 prisoners lodged in Agra jail for a period ranging from 14 years to 22 years despite being juveniles at the time of offence, reported Live Law.

A bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and V Ramasubramanian passed the order on a plea by the convicts seeking immediate release.

Advocate Garima Prashad, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, did not oppose the bail plea but said that individual facts about the convicts need to be verified before their release. She cited an Allahabad High Court order which asked to identify those who might not have been juvenile. Prashad sought two weeks’ time to file a counter-affidavit.

Advocate Rishi Malhotra, representing the petitioners, told the court that the case was of “illegal detention”. He submitted that while statutory criminal appeals in most of the 13 cases were pending before the Allahabad High Court, the convicts should be released as they had declared to be juveniles and had also served the maximum period of detention under the Juvenile Justice Act, which is three years, Live Law reported.

In their plea, the petitioners cited a May 2012 Allahabad High Court order, directing the Juvenile Justice Board to hold an inquiry to determine the age of the prisoners. The…

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