Jamshedpur gang rape: HC sets 6-month deadline for trial

JAMSHEDPUR: The Jharkhand high court (HC) on Wednesday ordered the lower court to complete the trial within six months of the sensational case in which a teenager was allegedly gangraped before being forced into prostitution. The court also rejected bail application of main accused Indrapal Saini alias Nitu.

“The bench of justice Anil Kumar Chowdhary of the HC Wednesday rejected Saini’s bail plea. The bench also ordered to complete the ongoing trial of the minor survivor in a Jamshedpur court within six months, implying that there will only be conviction or acquittal in the case,” Devesh Ajmani, HC lawyer representing the victim girl and her mother, said.

The HC has been monitoring the case after the victim’s mother filed a criminal writ petition on March 13, 2018, seeking CBI investigation, and alleged that the state police was trying to save the accused police officers and other influential accused.

“The defence lawyer representing Saini argued that Saini’s witness in the lower court has been completed and he has been in jail while seeking bail. I argued back that the victim’s main witness and cross examination has also been completed in the lower court, where she has categorically narrated the way she was gang-raped, threatened of acid attack, making video of the heinous act viral, taken to Dimna Lake, MGM police station, where police officials raped her, administered injections by a Bengal-based woman and then supplied to many other men across the city of Jamshedpur for over a year,” said Ajmani.

Earlier, Justice AB Singh’s HC bench had reserved order on Saini’s bail plea on November 13, 2019 while ordering the lower court to complete the trial in six months, but Covid-19 pandemic put the proceedings on the backburner. The victim’s main witness and cross examination was completed in the lower court the next day on November 14, 2019.

Ajamni further drew the attention of the HC bench Wednesday towards the fact that witness of the four of the ten charge sheet witnesses have been completed in the lower court. “All the four witnesses have corroborated the charges made by the victim against the three FIR accused and over a dozen other accused.

State CID has also been probing the case after the victim and her family lodged a complaint with chief minister (CM) Raghubar Das and the latter ordered a CID investigation on July 31, 2018, asking for a report within a month.