Utt HC | Personal liberty is very precious fundamental right and it should be curtailed only when it becomes imperative; Court allows bail application to accused booked under POCSO

Uttaranchal High Court: Alok Kumar Verma, J., allowed a bail application filed for grant of regular bail in connection for the offences punishable under Section 376(2)(i)(n) of the Penal Code and Section 5(1)/6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

The FIR was lodged by the father of the victim on 26-09-2018 with the allegations that his daughter told him about the mental and physical harassment given by the applicant/accused since 2014. The victim had mentioned about applicant had taken few photographs for which he was blackmailing and harassing her along with abusing her on the phone and forcing him to make physical relations with him. The counsel for the applicant, Vinod Sharma submitted that applicant was an innocent person; no date or month of the physical relations had been mentioned in the FIR; according to the medical report dated 27-09-2018, no sexual intercourse had been committed with the victim in last few days; no said photographs were produced by the prosecution; no rape or sexual intercourse had ever been committed by the applicant on the prosecutrix; in medical report dated 27.-09-2018, no sign of rape had been found and there was no swelling, no injury, no bleeding; the applicant has no criminal history; he was in custody since 27-09-2018; prosecution had not filed so far any reliable certificate of date of birth of the victim.

The Court while allowing the bail relied on the judgment of Siddharam Satlingappa Mhetre v. State of Maharashtra, (2011) 1 SCC 694 where the Supreme Court had observed that the personal liberty was a very precious fundamental right and it should be curtailed only when it becomes imperative according to the facts and circumstances of the case and in the present case the attendance of the accused could be secured without having him to be put in custody. [Amit v. State of Uttarakhand, 2020 SCC OnLine Utt 121, decided on 03-03-2020]