UP man spends decade in jail over brother's fingerprint

Bala Singh was wrongfully convicted for a crime committed by his brother. He claimed that due to lack of documents he could not prove his identity. Wrongful conviction is a matter of concern in Indian judiciary. 

Bala Singh spent 10 years in prison for a murder of Dharampal in 2001; the catch is that it was his brother Pappu who committed the crime. After the murder the police booked Pappu, but when they failed to arrest him, the Police picked up Bala. 

Since then Bala Singh spent 10 years in jail as he could not produce any document to prove that he indeed is not his brother. According to a Times of India report, the police sources disclosed that four people were booked for the murder and apart from Pappu, police caught all the others. Then police picked Bala instead of arresting Pappu and produced him in front of the court. 

Bala was then sent to jail, and ten years later fingerprint test proved that he is not Pappu and opened the door of the prison for him. District jail superintendent DC Mishra confirmed that the authority had Pappu’s fingerprints from a previous case and they sent these fingerprints along with Bala’s fingerprints to be tested in a forensic laboratory. 

This test confirmed that Bala is not Pappu and then, Bala was freed by the authority. However, it took nine years to conduct a test of identity to ascertain that a criminal is out in the open and an innocent man has been convicted of a serious crime. 

Meanwhile, as per the report, the mother of Bala claimed that Pappu fled to Nepal after the said murder and was killed in that country. The mother produced the death certificate to the police who refused to accept the same; then the poor mother somehow managed to get a lawyer for her son who got a court order for fingerprint test. 

This is not a single case of wrongful conviction in India. In 2009, a Chef of a restaurant was arrested for a rape case and got convicted. He was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in this wrongful conviction. 

Similarly, after 14 years in jail, Bhupinder Singh, was pronounced innocent by the Delhi high court on a murder case. Syed Wasif Haider spent eight years in another wrongful conviction case. He was slapped with 12 charges, and after his acquittal, he filed a writ against three dailies. 

Wrongful conviction is a serious matter in India and a big lacuna in the judicial system. Delivering justice is anyways a time-consuming process in India, and wrongful convictions led to ruining of life and reputation of an innocent man. There is no provision for compensation or rehabilitation assistance in India making these incidents a disgrace for the nation.