Nayagarh: In a case of suspected miscarriage of justice, the district juvenile justice board has called for immediate release of a girl prisoner serving a life sentence in the sub jail here. The board said she was a minor — both when the alleged crime was committed and when the judgment was issued on her. She now lives in jail with her three-year-old daughter.
The girl originally belonged to Surat (Gujarat). She had fallen in love with Dushashan Sethy of Sikharagochha village of Nuagaon block, while he was in Surat as a migrant worker. The affair progressed into marriage. Two years after the marriage, in 2013, while the girl was living with her in-laws in Orissa, her sister-in-law was allegedly murdered in a dowry case. The Nuagaon police arrested the girl along with her mother-in-law, suspecting their role in the murder. On March 29, 2017, she was convicted and awarded life imprisonment.
The sentence was read out by the additional district and sessions judge. It is now said that the girl was a minor when she got married, but she was shown in records as a major so as to facilitate the marriage. She was still a minor even at the time of her arrest, as also conviction and sentencing, it is now averred.
The juvenile justice board argues that conviction of a minor girl to life term is by itself a case of flawed dispensation of justice. A team of the Nayagarh Juvenile Justice Board (NJJB) comprising its president B.B. Ray and member Swadesh Mishra, along with legal-cum-provision officer Arshad Ansari found her in Nayagarh sub-jail during their visit of the jail June 3. When they quizzed her, they came to know she was a minor when she got married and also when she was convicted in the case of dowry death of her elder sister-in-law.
The team verified her birth certificate available at Nagar Primary Sikshasana Samiti, Surat, where she was studying. It was found that she was only 17 when she was sentenced to prison term in March 2017. It also transpired that she was asked not to divulge her actual age at the time of the marriage, for fear that her husband would later be in trouble over marrying a minor girl.
Citing Section 94 of Juvenile Justice Care and Protection of Children Act, that says if a minor undergoes imprisonment, his/her age can be ascertained at any later stage, be it during the hearing or after the judgment. In this context, the juvenile justice board team sought a reconsideration of her case and jail term order, from the High Court, the juvenile justice committee of the HC and the district and sessions judge.
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