The Supreme Court has stayed former Uttar Pradesh Minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati’s interim bail, granted for two months on medical grounds by the Allahabad High Court, in a gang rape case.
In its appeal, the State government said that the “High Court has erroneously granted a short-term bail of two months to the Respondent accused in a POCSO case solely on medical grounds ignoring that the accused has throughout been treated in premier national medical Institutes KGMC / SG-PGI, also specially when the regular bail application of the Respondent has already been fixed for hearing in the week commencing 28 September”.
A bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and M R Shah took note of the plea of the Uttar Pradesh government and stayed the HC’s bail order and sought response of the accused leader on the petition.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on 3 September had granted the interim bail to Prajapati who was a minister in the erstwhile Samajwadi Party government. Despite the bail, Prajapati remained in judicial custody as a fresh case of fraud, forgery and criminal intimidation was registered against him.
According to the government the accused was a “very prominent Minister in the erstwhile government and wielded considerable influence in the environs of powers”.
The political position of the accused was so dominating that the FIR against him was registered only after the victim approached the Supreme Court, it added. The gang rape case was lodged with Gautampalli police station in 2017 and later, Prajapati was arrested and sent to jail on March 15, 2017. He, along with others, is accused of raping a woman and attempting to molest her minor daughter Sexual crimes, that too those against children, are on a rise. Strict punishment to those involved in this, irrespective of their power and position, would ring a warning bell.