New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has said reasons such as “there was a love affair” between the girl and the accused and an alleged “refusal to marry” would not affect the granting of bail in the POCSO case.
A bench of Judges DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant overturned the order of a single judge of the Jharkhand High Court granting bail to an accused in a case registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act 2012 and IPC.
It said: “The High Court clearly erred in granting the bail application. The reason that it appears from the Article 164 statement and the statements in the FIR that there was ‘a love affair’ between the appellant and the second defendant and that the case was brought over the second defendant’s refusal to marry the appellant is misleading”.
The bank said: “Once, prima facie, it appears from the material before the Court that the appellant was barely thirteen years old on the date the alleged offense took place, both on the grounds, namely that ‘there was a love affair’ between the petitioner (girl) and the second defendant (defendant), as well as the alleged refusal to marry, are circumstances which do not affect the granting of bail”.
The court said in its order Monday it was believed that “given the age of the plaintiff and the nature and seriousness of the crime, there was no reason to grant bail”.
“The Supreme Court’s order granting bail must be disrupted, as the circumstances prevailing at the Supreme Court are strange given the age of the plaintiff, given the provisions of Section 376 of IPC and Section 6 of POCSO. We therefore have the contested decision of the High Court of 2 August 2021 is quashed,” it said. The bank ordered that the suspect immediately surrender to custody.
Senior attorney Anand Grover and attorney Fauzia Shakil, who appeared on the girl’s behalf, argued that the victim’s date of birth is January 1, 2005 and that she was barely 13 years old at the time of the alleged crime.
On the allegation of lawyer Rajesh Ranjan, who appears before the accused, that he is a student studying at a technical university and that he will not be granted bail throughout the trial, the court requested that in the facts and circumstances the special judge, POCSO, who is in charge of the process, will complete the process within six months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this warrant.
Mr Grover argued: “Given the provisions of Section 376 IPC and POCSO, the grounds weighted by the High Court are ex facie misleading and the bail application should not have been granted”.
Mr Ranjan, on the other hand, argued that although the complaint form has been filed, none of the allegedly obscene videos have been recovered, nor is there any medical evidence that the girl had any sexual contact with the accused.
The Supreme Court noted that on January 27, 2021, an FIR was registered in Kanke Police Station in Ranchi District for offenses under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the POCSO Act.
In the FIR, the petitioner girl alleged that at the time of the facts, when she was a minor, the second defendant (suspect) had taken her to a residential hotel and entered into a sexual relationship with the assurance that she would marry her.
She had alleged that the suspect refused to marry her and that he had sent certain obscene videos to her father.
It noted that the request for provisional bail filed by the accused was rejected by the Special Judge, POCSO, Ranchi on February 18, 2021, after which he surrendered and sought bail on April 3, 2021.
The police filed the charges with the special judge on May 24, 2021, and his bail request was granted by the single judge of the Jharkhand High Court.
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