SAHIL Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, incarcerating upon his arrest for alluring and raping a minor girl, has come up before this Court seeking regular bail.

(2.) A perusal of the petition reveals that the petitioner filed the bail petition before High Court, which is permissible given the decision of a three Judges Bench of HP High Court, in Mohan Lal v Prem Chand, AIR 1980 HP 36, (Para 9 and 15), wherein the Full bench holds that a person can directly apply for an anticipatory bail or regular bail to the High Court without first invoking the jurisdiction of the Sessions Judge.

(3.) Briefly, the allegations against the petitioner are that on 9/9/2021, the victim, a minor girl aged 14 years made a written complaint to the aforesaid Police Station. She informed that she is a student of Plus One. The son of her Chacha (paternal uncle) is a hair dresser. Around six months ago when her parents were not at home he visited her house and forcibly established sexual relations with her. After that, he repeatedly pressurized her to do sex with him. On her refusal, he threatened her to do away with her parents and siblings' life. Thus, she was forced to establish sexual relations with him on 2-3 occasions. On one such occasion, he called her to his home and while establishing sexual relations he also made a video of the sexual act. Subsequently, he pressurized her to continue sexual relations with him and told her that in case she refused he will make the video viral in her school. Feeling disgusted, she decided to leave the school and narrated the whole incident to her cousin (maternal uncle's daughter). When accused came to know about this, then he became very angry and uploaded the video on facebook and also broke the window panes of her Mama's car. When her cousin (Maternal uncle's daughter) came to know about the video of being viral, she told the victim and made complaint to the Police Station, seeking justice. Based on these allegations, the Police registered the FIR mentioned above.