A 24-year-old man who was charged with raping a 14-year-old girl was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on 17th February. The court noted that the victim ‘voluntarily’ stayed with the accused for four days and had ‘sufficient knowledge’ and ‘capacity’ to understand the ‘full consequence of her acts’. The decision was pronounced by the bench of Justice Milind Jadhav.
He took into account the underage girl’s claims that she had a consensual affair with the accused and added that she was conscious of her conduct. She had also mentioned that she spent more than three days and three nights with him. Additionally, he emphasized that although while the penalties outlined in Sections 4, 6, and 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act are severe, the court could nevertheless grant or deny bail in order to uphold the objectives of justice.
The court stated, “According to victim both of them known to each other for the past 2 years prior to the incident and had developed a love relation with each other. Insofar as the incident is concerned all that is stated in the statements as per record is that for three days and three nights. The victim wandered along with the applicant and on the 3rd night he ravished her modesty and committed assault on her. Prima facie the statement appears to be suspect.”
“The conduct of the prosecution in this case is indicative of the fact that she left her home without informing her parents by her own will and also stayed with applicant for 4 days. No doubt that the prosexutrix under the purview of POCSO Act is a minor, however the facts of the present case indicate that she had sufficient knowledge and capacity to know the full import of her actions and what she was doing and had only thereafter voluntarily joined and stayed with the applicant for 4 days,” he declared.
Additionally, she had altered her account regarding the exact date of the occurrence, the court noted. It further mentioned that aside from that, it was evident that she was well known to the man because he had previously worked at the same hotel where her father was employed “and in fact on reading the statements of witnesses which have been recorded out of which one witness statement is of the hotel owner it is seen that he had also warned the applicant during one of the three days during which she was missing on call.”
The accused was warned that he would lose his job if he persisted in having relationship with the girl and the court stated, “Therefore on reading of the FIR it is prima facie seen is that the father of victim was aware about her love relationship with the applicant.”
The bench pointed out that numerous rulings from the Supreme Court and other courts have supported the release of juvenile offenders on bail pending trial in order to prevent the regressive consequences of the jail environment and to keep in mind the best interest principle in the specific case at hand. As a mitigating circumstance, the court highlighted that the victim was not violently harmed and that the perpetrator had no past criminal history.
“Insofar as the present case is concerned, it is seen that victim has left her parents’ house without informing the parents and has stayed with Applicant for 3 days and 3 nights as also she has confessed that she was in love with the applicant and travelled alongwith him to different places and had a consensual encounter,” the judge conveyed. The culprit, who was caught in 2019 at the age of 19, had already served more than five years, two months, and twenty-three days in prison, which was also considered by the court before granting him bail under certain conditions including “bond in the sum of Rs. 15,000 with one or two sureties in the like amount.”
What’s in the FIR
It was the minor’s father who filed the complaint. According to the First Information, the teenager was living in Malad at the time told him that she was going to visit her married sister who was staying in Andheri. After four days without hearing from her, he contacted his younger daughter to find out about the victim’s whereabouts. When the former arrived, she told him that the girl went to the older sister’s home on the first day but had departed immediately and never returned. According to the father, he discovered his daughter and the applicant wandering about Juhu Chowpatti four days later and brought her home after which the official complaint was registered.
