The Supreme Court on Friday denied anticipatory bail to a rape accused. The bench of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice Aniruddha Bose denied anticipatory bail to the rape accused.
Advocate Murari Tiwari appeared on behalf of the petitioner. He submitted that the accused and the prosecutrix had known each other for the past five months. The prosecutrix had alleged that the accused has established a sexual relationship with her on the false pretext of marriage, which was wrong.
He also submitted that the prosecutrix used to live in vicinity and had knowledge that accused was earlier married twice, and when the prosecutrix family members came to know about the involvement of prosecutrix with the accused, they filed the wrong case against the accused.
He further pleaded that the accused has four children and if goes to jail then there will be no one to take care of them.
To which, the Bench replied that this is not a case for anticiparty bail, thereafter it dismissed the petition for anticipatory bail and asked the petitioner to apply for regular bail
The petitioner is charged with Sections 363 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code at Police Station Kihar, District Chamba in the FIR.
He sought enlargement on anticipatory bail under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
On March 24, 2021, a written complaint was lodged by the victim at Police Station. The victim was stated to have just attained the age of majority. She became acquainted with the bail petitioner for past about four months and became friendlier with him.
The petitioner extended a promise to marry her. Under the pretext of this promise, the petitioner took the victim to a Hotel in Chamba on March 2, 2021 and established physical relations with her.
The petitioner, thereafter, also established physical relations with the victim in a forest. All this time, the victim sincerely believed the promise to marry, extended by the petitioner. Becoming aware of these facts from a friend of the victim, her maternal Uncle inquired about the petitioner.
As a result of the inquiry so made, it transpired that the petitioner was already married and had children. The victim was not aware about the previous marriage of the petitioner or the fact that he had children from his marriage. These facts were concealed from her by the petitioner. The victim had believed in petitioner’s promise to marry her.
The moment the petitioner became aware that his whereabouts had been inquired by the victim’s family members, he started threatening the victim and also tried to blackmail her on the basis of audio/video clippings involving the victim with respect to the aforesaid acts.
On the basis of this complaint, FIR was registered on March 24, 2021. The investigation was carried out. The victim was got medically examined and her MLC was obtained. Her statement under Section 164 CrPC was recorded on March 25, 2021.
The Investigating Agency also visited the spots where the offending acts were allegedly committed by the petitioner. Statements of witnesses were also recorded under Section 161 CrPC. The victim’s age was determined as 19 years on the basis of her date of birth certificate.
The investigating agency also obtained the call detail records of the mobile phone numbers belonging to the victim and petitioner. During investigations, it also transpired that the petitioner was already married and had two children. His first wife had died and his two children were being looked after by his In-laws.
The petitioner had solemnised second marriage as well. As per the investigations carried out, the petitioner had concealed the factum of his previous two marriages from the victim, extended false promise of marrying the victim and under that pretext, had committed rape upon her.
Source: ILNS