Uttar Pradesh : Minors lodged in Agra jail get interim bail from Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release on interim bail of 13 convicts who have been declared minors at the time of the offence. Last week, the top court has issued a notice to the UP government in this matter.

Additional Advocate General Garima Prasad, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government before a bench headed by Justice Indira Banerjee, said the facts of the matter need to be examined. He said that all of them can be given interim bail. After which the bench decided to release all the 13 on interim bail. In fact, a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the immediate release of the 13 convicts as they have been declared minors by the Juvenile Justice Board at the time of the crime. All of them are currently lodged in the Agra Central Jail and have been kept in jails along with the dreaded criminals.
All the children were minors during the crime

The petition, filed through advocate Rishi Malhotra, said that after a PIL was filed in the Allahabad High Court in 2012, the Juvenile Justice Board was directed to dispose of the applications related to the juveniles of prisoners. After which all the 13 petitioners were declared as juveniles at the time of commission of the offence. That is, the board had found that all of them were below 18 years of age at the time of the offence. Despite a clear order by the Juvenile Justice Board to declare the petitioners as juveniles between February 2017 and March 2021, no steps have been taken to release all of them. It is also to be noted that these decisions of the Board have not been challenged. The petition said that as per Section-26 and Section-15 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, the maximum term of ‘imprisonment’ is three years and such imprisonment should be in a juvenile home. In this case all the petitioners are lodged in jails among hardcore criminals which is completely contrary to the object and intent of the Juvenile Justice Act.
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