In June 2006, a trial court in Baikunthpur in BAIKUNTHpur in Chhattisgarh handed out the death penalty to 18-year-old Sonu Sardar on charges of dacoity and murder. Of the gang of five persons who were accused of the crime, one was a juvenile and the other three are still absconding. The fact that Sonu Sardar was only 18 years and two months old when he committed the offence could have served as a mitigating factor to reduce his sentence. But this important fact only came to light in 2014, eight years after he was sentenced by the trial court. A group of student researchers at the Death Penalty Research Project of the National Law University Delhi (NLUD), in collaboration with the National Legal Services Authority, discovered this vital information during a field trip to the panchayat office of Sonu Sardar’s village. The project, conceptualised in June 2013, aimed to collate data about prisoners on death row across States vis-a-vis their level of access to legal representation, experience with the trial courts, life in prison and the socio-economic profile. About 90 student researchers were engaged in this project. Throughout the proceedings in the trial court and later on in the High Court and the Supreme Court, Sonu Sardar’s age was erroneously mentioned as 23. It was only in a review petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2015 that this fact was brought to light.
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