The Indian Express ·
21 years in jail, no trial: Lawyers take up fight for mentally ill Karnataka man
The Karnataka High Court is examining a petition filed by two lawyers on behalf of a prisoner whose case file was found missing and marked as "disposed of" online.
The Karnataka High Court Tuesday took up a petition concerning a mentally ill undertrial prisoner who has been lodged in Bengaluru Central Prison for 21 years without facing a criminal trial.
Hearing the plea, Justice C M Poonacha directed that the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority be made a party respondent to the case and scheduled the next hearing for Thursday. The petition seeks urgent directions to the trial court to immediately trace and release V Srinivasa’s records after his case file was found missing from official records.
Srinivasa was arrested in 2005 by the Kolar rural police for allegedly killing his wife. The trial court denied him bail, and he has remained in custody ever since.
