HC cancels bail to female teacher in Janakpuri school rape case

New Delhi, Jul 15 (PTI) Noting that POCSO cases warrant "utmost caution", the Delhi High Court on Wednesday cancelled the bail granted to a female teacher in a case concerning the alleged rape of a three-year-old girl by a staff member inside a private school in west Delhi's Janakpuri area, and asked her to surrender in three days. On June 29, the high court had also set aside the bail granted to the main accused, the caretaker of the school, in the case registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and asked him to surrender on July 1. In his order, Justice Saurabh Banerjee on Wednesday observed that while considering bail in cases involving sexual offences, "essential surrounding factors" like physical, emotional, mental and psychological harm to the victim have to be given due weightage. The High Court allowed the Delhi Police’s plea challenging the trial court order that granted bail to the teacher on May 20. "The respondent is hereby directed to surrender before the jurisdictional Additional Sessions Judge (POCSO Court) within three days of this judgment at or before 12:000 Noon," Justice Banerjee said. The teacher was arrested for allegedly concealing the incident from authorities and was remanded in one-day police custody by the trial court on May 14. In the judgement, Justice Banerjee opined that the trial court wrongly granted relief to the teacher merely because the survivor did not disclose her name in the complaint. Emphasising that any three-year-old cannot be expected to reveal every detail at the time of making the initial complaint, the judge said that the trial court erred in completely ignoring the crucial fact that the survivor has not only identified the teacher in the presence of her mother but also the spot where the incident took place. "Strangely, and though there is no bar, the learned Trial Court proceeded to grant regular bail to the respondent barely within six days of her arrest, when a bare perusal of the impugned order does not reflect anything which could/ may have prompted it to do so," the court stated. It further noted that the teacher holds a post of significance and authority in the school as she has been working there for the last thirteen years and therefore there is some likelihood of her tampering with evidence or influencing the witnesses, especially when the proceedings are at a nascent stage. POCSO Act is a special legislation enacted to address the inadequacies of the existing legal framework in dealing with sexual offences against children, and its cases warrant utmost care, attention and caution, particularly at the stage of considering release of the accused on bail, it added. Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the Delhi Police, had argued that the trial court erred by not considering the nature and gravity of the offence while granting bail to the teacher in a mechanical manner. He had said that the trial court failed to appreciate a significant prima facie circumstance that on the date of the incident, the minor girl was admittedly under the custody and care of the present accused, her class teacher, who had refused to permit her early departure from school despite being informed that she was unwell. The teacher's counsel, on the other hand, had submitted that she has been teaching at the school for 13 years and has been "falsely implicated". The incident came to light on May 1 when the girl's mother filed a complaint at Janakpuri police station, alleging that her daughter was sexually assaulted during school hours by the caretaker. According to the complaint, the child had gone to the school on April 30, the second day after her admission. After returning home, she complained of pain. When questioned by her mother, the girl said that she was taken to an isolated area in the school, where the man allegedly assaulted her. Based on the complaint by the child's mother, police registered a case under section 64(1) (punishment for rape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and section 6 (Punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the POCSO Act. Police said the child identified the accused, following which the school caretaker was arrested on May 1. He was later produced before a court and sent to judicial custody. However, he was granted bail by a court in Dwarka on May 7 despite strong opposition from the prosecution. PTI ADS RT