Murder Convict Declared Minor After 13 Years In Jail, Freed

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer) Nainital- The Uttarakhand High Court has ordered the immediate release of a prisoner who had been in jail for 13 years in a murder case.

A division bench of Justices Ravindra Maithani and Ashish Naithani found that the convict was a minor at the time of the crime, due to which the life imprisonment sentence given to him was no longer legally valid.

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The accused was convicted by the sessions court in connection with a murder and attempted robbery that took place in Roorkee in 2003. His conviction was upheld by a division bench of the high court in 2013 and later confirmed by the Supreme Court.

In 2021, the convict sent an application from jail claiming that he was a minor on the date of the incident, June 24, 2003. To verify this claim, the court directed the Registrar (Judicial) to conduct a detailed inquiry.

After a thorough examination of school records, student registers, and witness statements, the Registrar (Judicial) found that the convict's actual date of birth was May 22, 1988, and he was 15 years and one month old at the time of the crime.

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