Faced with a peculiar situation after the criminal records of four jailed inmates went missing, with no clarity on the status of their sentences, the Gauhati High Court recently said the “government has no idea” as it initiated a suo motu (on its own motion) case.

A bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury said that the “records of the criminal case of four of the jail inmates are not traceable” and directed the trial courts concerned to “reconstruct” the records.

“We, therefore, direct the concerned district judges of Nalbari and Sribhumi Courts, where those inmates were tried, to reconstruct the records on an urgent basis,” the bench ordered.

The court earlier found that the inmates were languishing in jail with no information to the government or to the fa

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