New Delhi, Sep 15 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear the bail plea of wife of a close aide of gangster Vikas Dubey, killed in police encounter last year in Uttar Pradesh.

Senior advocate Vivek Tankha, representing the wife, contended that she was a minor on the date of incident and been in a detention home for the past one year.

A bench of Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari agreed to examine the plea.

Tankha, assisted by advocate Sumeer Sodhi, contended before the bench his client was the wrong place and at the wrong time. He cited that she was married to Dubey's close aide only seven days prior to the incident of July 3.

It argued that she was not named in the FIR, which was registered in the incident, while her husband was named as accused in the FIR. The plea contended that the petitioner was admittedly a minor on the date of incident and got arrested solely because of the fact that her husband was named in the FIR.

It was contended that as per the order of the Juvenile Justice Board, the age of the petitioner on the date of incident was 16 years, 10 months, and 12 days.

Eight policemen were killed by Dubey and his gang members in Kanpur's Bikaru village on the intervening night of July 2-July 3. After this incident, police launched a massive search operation and several of Dubey's gang members were killed in separate encounters, which included the petitioner's husband.

On July 10, Vikas Dubey was killed when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he allegedly tried to escape from the spot.