Mumbai: Setting aside a sessions court’s order granting bail to an accused in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act case, the Bombay high court has directed the judge to hear his bail plea afresh after issuing notice to the survivor’s mother.
“It is a mandatory provision in Pocso cases that while passing an order, the court has to hear the first informant or guardian of the victim,” said Justice Shivkumar Dige on Nov 13.
The mother of the nin-year-old girl moved the high court to cancel the bail granted to the accused, aged 55, on March 12 by the additional sessions judge, Panvel. The FIR was registered by thr Uran police station, Navi Mumbai.
On Jan 7, around 7.20 pm, the girl entered the house crying and told her mother that while she was parking her bicycle, the accused touched her inappropriately.
The judge noted that in her Feb 10 supplementary statement, she told her mother the accused touched her “two to three times and molested her”. When the mother went to his house and questioned him, he denied the allegation and his wife and daughter abused her. The accused manhandled her husband.
The mother’s advocate, Ganesh Gupta, said that after the chargesheet was filed, the accused applied for bail before the sessions judge without giving notice to the mother. He said bail was granted against mandatory provisions of the law. The advocate for the accused, requesting rejection of the mother’s application, said the judge has passed a well-reasoned order and no interference is required in it.
Justice Dige noted that the bail order was admittedly passed without giving notice to the mother, who is the first informant. “The learned sessions judge has not considered this fact and has passed the impugned order,” he said, and quashed and set it aside. He directed that the sessions judge shall decide the bail plea by giving “an opportunity of hearing” to the mother, and until the decision, “the respondent (accused) is protected from arrest”.