The High Court of Himachal Pradesh in Rohit Kumar Vs State of H.P. denies bail to a 22-year-old man accused of raping a 17-year-old girl and remarked that ‘the conduct of the accused is so deplorable that it would make the life of young friends belonging to the opposite gender miserable. The accused appears to be a pervert and, as such, there is no question to grant the bail to the accused.’

FIR was registered against accused under Sections 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354(C) (Voyeurism) 376 (Punishment for Rape) of the Indian Penal Code (“IPC”) Section 6 ( Punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of  the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (“POCSO Act”) and 67(B)  (Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act in electronic form) of Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”)

It is the case that when the victim girl and her friend Sandeep were walking below the road to have gossips, 6 boys came there. After that they forced the victim to undress, then one of them started making her nude video. In the meantime, other accused boys were continuously beating Sandeep Kumar and one of the accused caught hold of the victim from her arm and took her to the bushes, where she was made to remove her clothes and he committed rape upon her.
Allegedly, when she resisted, he slapped her, in the meanwhile, other boys had caught hold of Sandeep, so that he could not save her and while leaving, they threatened the victim not to reveal this incident to anyone, otherwise they would make her video viral.

However, after some days, the victim came to know that they had uploaded the video and then she informed the police, which led to the registration of the instant FIR.

The Counsel for the petitioner contended that incarceration before the proof of guilt would cause grave injustice to the petitioner and family.

The State argued that the Police has collected sufficient evidence against the accused and that the crime committed is heinous. The accused is a risk to law-abiding people, and bail might send a wrong message to the society. The Court observed that ‘they took advantage of the victim being with the male friend and the main accused forced himself upon her and they not only did that, they also made a video and made it viral’; and stated that in the facts and circumstances peculiar to this case, the petitioner fails to make out a case for bail, the petition is dismissed with liberty.

– Vaishali Jain, Paralegal – Child Safety at Work