The Bombay High Court granted bail to a man arrested for allegedly raping a minor girl in 2019, saying she had voluntarily stayed with him and had “consensual encounter”. The high court passed the order on February 17 in the bail application of the accused.
The man, then 19-year-old, was arrested by the police in 2019 for allegedly raping and kidnapping of the girl, then aged 14.
“No doubt that the girl was a minor. However, the facts of the present case indicate that she had sufficient knowledge and capacity to know the full impact of her actions and what she was doing and had only thereafter voluntarily joined and stayed with the applicant for four days,” the single-judge bench of Justice Milind N Jadhav said in the order.
The high court also said the man was incarcerated as an undertrial for more than five years and even though the offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act are “stringent” in nature, the same “would not deter the Court to grant or refuse bail in order to secure the ends of justice.”
According to the FIR, filed by the girl’s father in 2019, she had told him that she was visiting her married sister, but she left the sister’s house and did not return for three-four days.
After four days, the father found her daughter with the man.
Opposing the bail plea, the girl’s lawyer said she was 14 years old at the time of the incident and her consent would not matter.
Taking into notice the girl’s medical report, wherein she had given a statement that the two had a consensual relationship, the court said there is a “clear variance” between her statement and the FIR.
It also observed that the girl’s father was aware of her relationship with the man.
Justice Jadhav also said the Supreme Court has repeatedly “favoured release of young offenders on bail pending trial so that regressive influences of jail environment can be avoided” and keeping in mind their “best interest”.
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