ABUJAM TOMBISANA SINGH Vs. STATE OF MANIPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed by the petitioner under Sec. 439 Cr.P.C to enlarge him on bail in connection with the Special Trial (POCSO) Case No. 68 of 2020 pending on the file of the Fast Track Special Court No 1, Manipur.

(2.) The case of the prosecution is that on 29/8/2018, the complainant, father of the victim, lodged a complaint with the Officer-in-Charge of Wangoi Police Station stating that his daughter, aged 15 years, was staying at the Boarding and Coaching Centre at Samurou Awang Leikai for her preparation of HSLC Examination, 2018. The said Boarding and Coaching Centre was run by the petitioner/accused, who is also the uncle of the complainant. While the victim was staying at the said Boarding and Coaching Centre, on 13/3/2018 at about 3.30 a.m., the accused raped the victim many times by threatening her that he will make her fail the HSLC Examination. The accused also threatened the victim not to disclose the act committed by him. Based on the said complaint, the respondent police registered an FIR bearing No.43(8)2018 under Sec. 506 IPC and Sec. 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (hereinafter referred to as "POCSO Act"), upgraded to Sec. 6 of the said Act against the petitioner/accused.

(3.) Mr. L. Seityandra, the learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is an innocent and has been falsely implicated in the alleged crime. Further, there are more than 10 female students at the boarding run by the petitioner and the students studied in group and no separate or isolated study rooms were maintained by the petitioner. In fact the house of the victim was just adjacent to the boarding and the joint family of the petitioner was also residing adjacent to the boarding. He would submit that all the female students were sleeping in the same room and the beds were joined together and it is absolutely not possible that the petitioner could enter and raped the victim many times without waking up the other female boarders.