Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court on Friday cancelled former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati’s bail in a rape case and said the lower court had acted in haste.
Allowing the petition of the Uttar Pradesh government seeking cancellation of the bail of Prajapati and and two others, Justice AP Sahi on Friday questioned the manner in which the Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) handled the matter, PTI reported.
“The entire process was concluded as if the grant of bail had been preordained,” Justice Sahi said.
The HC had earlier stayed the April 25 order of the ASJ granting bail to Samajwadi Party leader Prajapati and his associates Vikas Verma and Amrendra Singh alias Pintu.
In the circumstances, there cannot be a presumption of the impugned order having been passed in good faith, the judge said.
“The manner in which the bail was granted almost on the eve of the retirement of the officer concerned, that too even without any opportunity being afforded to the prosecution in the real sense, the grant of bail was clearly vitiated,” Justice Sahi said.
The ASJ did not discuss the ingredients of the provisions of the POCSO Act and its implications, said the HC, adding that a court while dealing with such serious matters having the potential of wide ramifications has to act with gravity and patience.
It, however, said that the accused could move fresh pleas for bail to be decided on merit after affording adequate opportunity to the prosecution to present its case.
A woman had lodged an FIR with Gautam Palli police station in Lucknow that Prajapati and his accomplice had raped her for years after promising her a mining licence and they were trying to target her daughter.
The FIR was registered after the Supreme Court had pulled up the state government.
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