@Autowired not working in inner class

I have a class being @Autowired in inner class. But while executing it throws a Null Pointer Exception, whereas it works fine when Autowired in outer class

class outer {
   ...
   class inner {
       @Autowired
       private var somevar;
       private process () {
           somevar.someMethod();
   }
}

Any idea why this is not working? 'somevar.someMethod();' line is generating NPE.