Mumbai: In a POCSO case where a 15-year-old girl was allegedly sexually abused, leading to her pregnancy, the Bombay High Court granted a 22-year-old man bail after observing that the minor was fully capable of understanding the consequences of her actions. The court noted that the girl eloped with the man voluntarily, and her physical relationship with him was consensual, India Today reported.
The court noted, "Facts of the present case indicate that prosecutrix (girl) had sufficient knowledge and capacity to know the full import of what she was doing and had only thereafter voluntarily joined the applicant (man)," India quoted the court.
The court of Justice Milind Jadhav was hearing a bail plea filed by a man who had been incarcerated for more than three years. A case was registered in Navi Mumbai in August 2020.
The case goes like the following. On August 8, 2020, the 15-year-old girl left her home and did not return. Her father suspected the involvement of a man, and he went in search of him at his rented house in Navi Mumbai but failed to find him. However, the father managed to contact the man on the phone, but he denied knowing her whereabouts.
It was only two days later that the girl informed her family that she was with the mentioned man, who is a native of Uttar Pradesh. Ten months later, she informed her family that she was pregnant, and she requested their assistance in returning to Navi Mumbai.
Her father went with the police to Uttar Pradesh to get the girl back, and they were accompanied by one more girl.
The girl’s statement is that she had been in a relationship with the man since 2019, and she had been meeting him regularly despite her parent's disapproval.
According to the case, the man had forced sexual relations with the girl in March 2020, but due to the Covid lockdown, he returned to his village. Later, he came back to take the girl to his village.
The court granted the man bail despite the prosecution’s argument that the girl was a minor at the time of the alleged sexual assault.