A 20-YEAR-OLD man, booked for raping and impregnating a 13-year-old girl, was granted bail last Friday after he spent seven months in jail as a DNA report revealed that he was not the biological father of the child born to the victim.
The special court, considering the DNA report, held that the man’s career would be spoilt if he is kept behind bars with hardened criminals. It said that while the culpability of the accused will be decided at the trial, no purpose would be served by keeping him in jail at this stage.
The case pertains to a police complaint filed in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai last August after it came to light that the girl was seven months pregnant.
The girl informed her mother that she had physical relations with the accused multiple times, as he had promised to marry her. She told the police in her statement that she knew the accused for over two years and in December 2019, they became intimate. She added that subsequently, the accused refused to marry her. When she informed her mother about it, a police complaint was filed, leading to the registration of the FIR.
The accused, meanwhile, has claimed that he has been falsely implicated. He has said that he was informed about the girl’s pregnancy one month before the FIR was lodged and that the mother had demanded Rs 10 lakh from him.
He told the court that he had, at that time, insisted on a DNA test but the mother refused and sought money to abort the child. He also claimed that there was a deliberate delay in filing of the FIR.
“Here, in view of the pandemic again, there is no likelihood of taking up the matter immediately as well as the DNA report has shown that the accused is excluded to be the biological father of the female child of the victim,” special Judge Rekha Pandhare said. The accused, who was in custody since August 20, 2020, was granted bail with conditions, including not to enter the area where the girl resides.
The man was booked under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and three sections of rape under the Indian Penal Code.
