Rape accused gets 16 days bail to marry survivor | India News

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has granted 16-day bail to a 23-year-old man arrested under the Pocso Act to marry an 18-year-old girl whom he is accused of raping and fathering a child with when she was a minor.

Treating the case as “peculiar”, Justice M Nagaprasanna directed the authorities to release the complainant from Mysuru city jail on June 17 so that the couple can get married and their one-year-old child “does not suffer any kind of disgrace”. The accused will have to return to jail on July 3. “The marriage certificate has to be produced before the court on the next date of hearing (July 4). The complainant has to appear before the concerned police station once a week,” the judge said in his order. The court stated that “this direction is considered necessary to protect the interest of the child and the responsibility of the mother in bringing up the child”.

The girl was 16 years and nine months old when her mother filed a case against him on February 16, 2023. She had already given birth to a girl. The plaintiff has been in judicial custody since the day the case was filed. The accused had approached the high court seeking quashing of the case pending before a special court in Mysuru. The judge noted that the plaintiff’s counsel and the defendants had said that the accused and the girl were in love with each other but her parents had opposed it. “The parties are seeking quashing of the case as the plaintiff wants to marry the girl as she and her child will not be left in the lurch,” the judge said.