The Supreme Court has on Tuesday denied any relief to a man accused in the rape case of a minor victim, who later married a co-accused in the FIR.
A two-judge bench of Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice Krishna Murari was hearing the anticipatory bail plea of Dilip Kumar Gupta, accused of penetrative sexual assault of ‘XYZ’ child qua prosecutrix, to surrender before trial court and apply for regular bail. Gupta has preferred anticipatory bail application against the dismissal of the same by the Allahabad High court.
‘XYZ’ child has been represented by one person Ramprasad before the apex court. Amit Kumar, Senior Advocate for Gupta, submitted before bench that chargesheet has been filed and he was not arrested during filing of chargesheet. High Court granted him protection. But there wasn’t any order of interim protection by the High Court.
The bench posed a question to Gupta’s counsel as to why didn’t he surrender before the trial court?
Background of the Case
The High Court had observed while dismissing the anticipatory bail filed under Section 438 CrPC that only on those grounds, anticipatory bail can be granted where there are materials on record available that prosecution has filed are highly doubtful.
“It is also well settled law that while considering the question of grant of anticipatory bail, the Court prima facie has to look into the nature and gravity of the alleged offence and the role of the accused. The Court is also bound down and must look into, while exercising its power to grant bail, the antecedents of the applicant and also the possibility of the applicant fleeing from justice, apart from other factors and parameters in view of the facts of each and every case,”
-it had held.
Against Gupta, an FIR under section 342, 506, 376- D IPC and under section ¾ POCSO act got lodged. However, in the second statement of child ‘XYZ’ recorded under section 164 of CRPC, she admitted that she had run away with one Arvind, out of her free will, got married and one child is born out of wedlock.
The petitioner has been named in the second statement recorded under Section 164 CRPC that he has committed rape with her. The first statement of prosecutrix recorded under Section 164 CRPC reflects material contradictions- stated by Gupta’s counsel before Allahabad High court.
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Prosecution Story
The prosecution story, in brief, is that the complainant is the resident of Mohalla Ashraf Tola Baruni, P. S. Sandila, District Hardoi and her father is a labourer while the mother works as a domestic help. On 15.06.2017 at about 6.00 pm, Arvind, son of Narendra, Taj, son of Saleem, resident of Ashraf Tola, Baruni Sandila, District Hardoi visited the house of the complainant and said that he is looking for house-help and requested her to visit the concerned house.
Thereafter, the complainant went to Arvind’s house where applicant along with other accused persons committed rape upon her and made a video recording and threatened to make the video viral if she disclosed the incident to anyone.