BAIL PLEA OF GANG-RAPE ACCUSED REJECTED

Complainant is a child in conflict with law in a murder case

A special court designated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has denied bail to a 21-year-old booked for the gang-rape of a 17-year-old minor along with his friends, one of whom was the boyfriend of the minor.

The minor, who is a children’s remand home, being a child in conflict with law in a murder case, had revealed the incident to the juvenile justice board when her statement was being recorded in connection with the murder case.

This was the second bail plea of the youth, his first being rejected in March this year. His advocate told the court while arguing his bail plea that he had been falsely implicated in the case because he had seen the minor stealing a mobile and a laptop. He also argued that the conduct of the complainant is such that she had more than one romantic partners at a given point of time, she lies and has confessed to a murder. He claimed that she had made up the complaint of gang-rape to get sympathy and that such an incident never took place.

The prosecution opposed the youth's bail plea arguing that the victim's conduct is not material, but only the incident of gang-rape on her. As per her complaint, she was taken away from a Ganpati procession during Ganesh Chaturthi by her boyfriend and his friend on a two-wheeler to a place with bushes near Ghatkopar. The applicant had joined them there in another two-wheeler. The three had taken turns in gang-raping her.

Special judge under the POCSO Act Priti Kumar (Ghule) noted in her order that there is direct material to link the accused with the heinous offence of gang-rape on a 17year-old minor. The offence of gang-rape is very serious and the punishment is up to life imprisonment and imprisonment not less than 20 years, she said. She declined to grant bail observing that irrespective of age, the offence of gang-rape is ‘very heinous’ against any woman.