Rajasthan High Court: The accused-appellant who was in custody in relation to offences punishable under various sections of IPC and POCSO Act, was enlarged on bail by a Single Judge Bench comprising of P.K. Lohra, J.
The accused was charged under Sections 363, 366-A, 342 and 376 of IPC along with Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act. The accused had filed a post-arrest bail application which was rejected by the learned Special Judge. The said order was challenged by the accused-appellant in the instant petition. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the trial court did not appreciate the evidence in proper light and prayed that the accused be enlarged on bail.
The High Court bestowed its consideration to the arguments advanced at the Bar and perused the evidence on record as well as the impugned order. The Court closely considered the submissions made on behalf of the appellant that in his statement, the medical expert stated that the prosecutrix was above 18 years of age. There was a delay of more than one and a half month, from the date of incident, in lodging the FIR which per se creates doubt about the incident. The prosecutrix accompanied the appellant of her own volition and lived with him for about two months. There were contradictions in the statements of the prosecutrix herself. Further, the appellant was in custody for about one and a half year and completion of trial was likely to take considerable time. Considering these facts and circumstances of the case, the Court held that the trial court erred in declining bail to the accused-appellant. Therefore, the impugned order was set aside and the appellant was enlarged on bail. [Ramdev v. State of Rajasthan, 2018 SCC OnLine Raj 740, order dated 05-04-2018]
