Must hear rape survivor in bail case of accused: Supreme Court – Times of India

NEW DELHI: In a short ruling, SC said no court can grant bail to persons facing rape charges without hearing the survivor or her parents/guardians, in addition to the public prosecutor, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.
Cancelling bail granted by Allahabad HC to persons accused of gang-raping a 14-year-old in Ghaziabad in 2021, Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma expressed concern over HC ignoring provisions of law.
SC: Bail granted to rape accused in very casual and cursory manner
The court said the law mandated grant of hearing to the complainant or her parents/guardian in cases relating to sexual assault and offences under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Appearing for the father of the minor rape survivor, advocate Pranav Sachdeva said the HC erred gravely on two counts – by not adhering to the mandate of Section 439(1A), which made it compulsory for the accused to implead the rape survivor, and casually enlarging (releasing) the accused in a gang-rape case.
Sachdeva cited a 2002 SC judgment in Jagjeet Singh vs Ashish Mishra case, which had said, “Victims could not be expected to be sitting on the fence and watching the proceedings from afar and that victims had a legally vested right to be heard at every step post the occurrence of an offence.”
Accepting his reasoning, the bench said, “As per Section 439(1A) of CrPC, the presence of the informant or any person authorised by him or her is obligatory at the time of hearing of the application for bail to the person under sub-section (3) of Section 376 or Section 376AB or Section 376DA or Section 376DB of the IPC.”
“Similarly, it is also mandatory for the special public prosecutor of the state govt to inform the victim about the court proceedings, including bail proceedings as contemplated in sub-section (3) of Section 15A of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989,” Justices Trivedi and Sharma said in its order of Dec 13, which was uploaded on SC website on Tuesday.
Faulting the HC for “gross violation” of mandatory provisions while granting bail to the gang-rape accused, the bench said the HC also granted bail to the accused in “a very casual and cursory manner without assigning any cogent reasons, though the accused are prima facie involved in a serious offence”.