Supreme Court Cancels Bail in Aggravated POCSO Case; Rules Consensual Plea Untenable for Minor Victims

In an appleal against the bail granted by the Allahabad High Court to the accused in a gang-rape case involving a 14-year-old, the Supreme Court took a stern stand and dismissed the plea of consensual relationship and observe that overlooking the vulnerability of the victim and the gravity of the offence constitutes a material misdirection in law.

• The case is stemmed from a harroffic incidnet of repeated sexual assault and intimidation of a 14-year-old girl by the respondent-accused, Arjun, and his associates. It was alleged that the accused established physical relations with the victim over a period of six months by threatening her with a country-made firearm (katta) and recorded the acts to blackmail her, however, on December 1, 2024, when the victim was allegedly abducted on a motorcycle and molested before being abandoned at a bus stand.*

Initially, the victim's family was advised to compromise, instead of registering the FIR, later, the case was registered and a chargesheet came to be filed for aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the POCSO Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

The accused then approached the the Allahabad High Court, with a plea that it was consensual relationship, and convinced by it the High Court granted bail to the accused in April 2025. This led the victim ('X') to approached the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of this bail, citing both the legal errors in the High Court's order and the accused's post-release conduct in threatening her.

The Supreme Court's bench comprising Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice R. Mahadevan, while deciding the appeal for cancellation of bail observed that the plea of "Consensula Relationship" is untenable as the case is involving a minor and particularly when the allegations involve coercion, armed intimidation, and multiple perpetrators. The Bench further held that the High Court's exercise of discretion was "manifestly erroneous" as it ignored the statutory rigour of the POCSO Act and the specific prima facie evidence available in the victim's statement.

The Apex Court noted that the medical report and the victim’s statement under Section 183 BNSS (corresponding to Section 164 CrPC) established a consistent account of penetrative assault that should not have been overlooked.

On the safety of the victim and Trial Integrity, the Apex Court expressed grave concern as the victim resides in the same locality as the accused, and also that the accused's conduct during the bail wherein the accused had been stalking the victim and playing songs glorifying violence to instill fear, leading to the victim child dropping out of school. Relying on its precendent in case of State of Bihar v. Rajballav Prasad Yadav the Apex Court held that "The post-release presence of Respondent No. 2 gives rise to a real and imminent apprehension of intimidation and further trauma to the victim. In offences involving sexual assault against children, the likelihood of tampering with evidence or influencing witnesses constitutes a grave and legitimate concern."

The Supreme Court frawned upon the mechanical approach taken by the Allahbad High Court in deciding the bail, where the precedents like Satender Kumar Antil vs CBI vs and Manish Sisodia vs ED clarified that while those cases set general bail guidelines or addressed prolonged incarceration, they could not be used as a "blanket shield" to grant bail in heinous crimes against children where the accused had only been in custody for a few months

Reaffirming the principle that "Gods live where women are respected," the Supreme Court held that allowing a person to move freely despite prima facie material of a heinous crime risks jettisoning the criminal justice system and traumatizing the victim further, the Apex Court allowed the appeal, cancelling the bail and directing the accused to surrender within two weeks.

CORAM: JUSTICE B.V. NAGARATHNA and JUSTICE R. MAHADEVAN.