Juvenile wrongfully convicted for killing 7 walks free after 28 yrs in jail

Guwahati, April 13: A man from Rajasthan who was on death row as a teenager took his first steps towards freedom after serving a jail term of 28 years. The man, identified as Niranaram Chetanram Chaudhary, led the life of confinement only because his name was ‘misspelled’ during his conviction.

It was in the year 1994, when Chaudhary was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for murdering seven people. Chaudhury who was a 12-year-old teen then was wrongfully convicted for the murders as his name was misspelled as Narayan instead of Niranaram and he was registered as 22-year-old at the time of arrest.

Despite several appeals and petitions in High Courts and Supreme Court, it did not yield any fruitful result. A review petition was also dismissed, said reports.

During his time in prison, Chaudhury focused on up skilling him and decided to study further, following which he asked his family members to send his transfer certificate. The certificate proved to be a boon for him which clearly indicates that he was much younger than the prison records.

Chaudhury later came to know about the Project 39A, a criminal justice initiative based in the National Law University. It was inspired by Article 39-A of the Indian Constitution, a provision that furthers the intertwined values of equal justice and equal opportunity. It conducts research on death penalty, mental health and criminal justice, torture, forensics, legal aid and sentencing. It also provides pro bono legal representation to death row prisoners across India.

In the year 2014, Project 39A took up the case and filed a petition in the Supreme Court following which an inquiry was initiated to verify Chaudhury’s identity and age. After five long years it was proved that he was a juvenile when he was convicted in the case.

The conviction of Chaudhury has raised question on the integrity of the criminal justice system. Shreya Rastogi, co-founder and director, death penalty litigation at Project 39A has termed it as a failure of the system.