Setting aside a Jharkhand High Court order allowing bail to an accused under POCSO case, the Supreme Court said that grounds of “a love affair” between the girl and the accused is no ground for granting bail.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant set aside the order of a single judge of Jharkhand High Court granting bail to an accused in a case registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012 and IPC saying “The High Court was manifestly in error in allowing the application for bail.”
The bench said, “Once, prima facie, it appears from the material before the Court that the appellant was barely thirteen years of age on the date when the alleged offence took place, both the grounds, namely that ‘there was a love affair’ between the appellant (girl) and the second respondent (accused) as well as the alleged refusal to marry, are circumstances which will have no bearing on the grant of bail”.
The bench in its order passed on Monday said that “having regard to the age of the prosecutrix and the nature and gravity of the crime, no case for the grant of bail was established”.
“The order of the High Court granting bail has to be interfered with since the circumstances which prevailed with the High Court are extraneous in view of the age of the prosecutrix, having regard to the provisions of Section 376 of IPC and Section 6 of POCSO. We accordingly set aside the impugned order of the High Court dated August 2, 2021”, it said. The bench directed that the accused should surrender forthwith to custody.