A high court judge on Thursday provided two lifers with lawyers after they said they could not afford lawyers to fight their case.

'According to the provisions laid down in the Constitution, each and every accused should get lawyers to fight their case,' Justice Asim Kumar Roy of Calcutta High Court said. He asked advocates Kallol Mondal and Jayanta Nararyan Chatterjee to plead for the convicts for free.

After both lawyers agreed to the judge's proposal, Roy asked the superintendent of Presidency Correctional Home to be present in court on January 27 with the case history of the two convicts.

Rajib Dutta, 32, and Arup Roy, 29, were arrested in a murder case at Jagachha in Howrah in 2005. In the same year, a Howrah sessions court held them guilty and sentenced them to life.

Dutta and Roy moved the high court, challenging the sessions court's verdict, and the case came up for hearing in 2007. After two or three hearings, the case lay pending because no lawyer was ready to fight their case.

Justice Roy recently noticed these appeals had been pending for seven years. When he enquired with the public prosecutor last week, he was told that the duos appeal did not come up for hearing as they failed to engage any lawyer.

The judge then asked the state authorities to produce them before him on Thursday.

When they were brought in, the judge asked them why they did not press for hearing of their appeal. 'Initially, we engaged lawyers. Since we could not afford them, they left us,' Arup Roy said. 'We do not have money to fight our case.'

Justice Roy then said: 'But you should get justice. Why did you not apply for lawyers from legal aid?'

Legal Aid Services provides free legal assistance to the needy. The convicts said they had no idea about legal aid and no one had told them that they could get lawyers.

'The court will scan your cases and see whether the verdict of the Howrah court was just or not,' Justice Roy said.