Youth lands in jail for stealing Rs 115 20-yr ago

SUNDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2011, AMARNATH TEWARY | PATNA

It’s the perfect case of fact being stranger than fiction. A man from Buxar district of Bihar, who was caught picking pockets at the age of nine, was sent to jail after 20 years when he turned 29 last fortnight. He now needs Rs 5,000 as bail for allegedly stealing Rs 115 but is unable to do so as he is a marginal worker.

This amazing story of Shera Singh began in 1991, when he was caught picking pockets at Dumaron bus-stand in Bhojpur. He was nine years old at the time.

According to Buxar lawyer Shashi Kant Ojha, Shera was produced in chief judicial magistrate court in Ara in 1991 despite being a minor. Buxar was not a separate district at the time. The Ara court released the ‘delinquent’ Shera on bail but the case was not closed.

However, in 1994, Buxar was carved out as a new district and the court handling Shera’s case was shifted to the new district. For 16 years, Shera’s papers could not be traced.

There was no follow-up until 20 years later, the day he turned 29 years old and was sent to jail for a ‘crime’ he had forgotten all about.

A non-bailable warrant was issued against Shera and the police moved to attach his properties. The order came as a bolt from blue for Shera and he surrendered before the designated court to avoid confiscation of his properties. He was sent to jail and has been languishing there. He now requires Rs 5,000 for the bail bond, which appears a daunting task for him.

Shera appeared clueless about the incomprehensible example of justice meted out to him. Legal experts say the maximum sentence for his offence could be three years.

But whose fault is it after all? According to Ojha, “It happened because of his lawyer’s mistake and since there was no juvenile court in Ara at that time. Of course, the misplacement of court documents during shifting from Ara to Buxar, which kept his case hanging for such a long period of time, is also to be blamed.”

According to a recent report released by the Bihar social justice department, there are 16,000 juvenile cases pending in different courts of the State. Patna alone accounts for more than 1,500 cases till March 31. The cases remain pending despite Section 14 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, mandating disposal within four months of registration.

Department officials now only express optimism that the trial of juvenile cases would be fast-tracked in the districts following constitution of the proposed juvenile justice tribunal.

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