The Kerala High court on Wednesday issued a notice to Padmarajan, a local BJP leader and a school teacher who stands accused of sexually abusing a class four student in a school in Palathayi, Thalassery, in January 2020. The High Court ordered the investigating officer in the case to directly deliver the notice to the accused and ask him to appear before the court.
The judge issued the notice after hearing a plea submitted by the victim’s mother, who asked for Padmarajan’s bail to be revoked. A bail was granted to the accused by a POCSO court in Thalassery on July 17.
Padmarajan’s bail was granted by the court as the CB-CID officials investigating the case had dropped all POCSO and Indian Penal Code sections dealing with sexual abuse from the chargesheet. The authorities stated that it needed more time to probe these charges in light of the pandemic, despite recording the victim’s statement and a medical examination certificate which confirmed that the 10-year-old had been sexually assaulted.
Since the remaining charges were minor in nature, the court observed that the accused merited a bail.
“It is a Special POCSO court which heard the petition and granted the bail saying there are no POCSO charges. If there are no POCSO charges, then the court automatically loses the jurisdiction to hear the bail plea. We have made this argument in our petition asking for the bail to be revoked,” Mohammad Shah, Public Prosecutor in the case told TNM.
Further, the plea asking for the accused’s bail to be revoked also argued that he had submitted petition under default bail clause, which will not stand in this case.
“The accused had asked for a bail under section 167 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - which deals with default bail. The default bail section says that if any person is arrested and a chargesheet by the police is not submitted within 90 days, then the accused is entitled to get a bail by default. We have argued that this condition is invalid here, as the police had submitted the final report in the case on the 90th day,” Mohammad Shah, public prosecutor in the case explained to TNM.
The victim’s side also argued that as per section 439 (1) (A) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a provision was made to hear the victim’s statement before granting bail.
“However, the victim’s side was not notified of the proceedings and this we believe leads to procedural impropriety,” Mohammad Shah added.
The Palathayi case first came to light in March 2020, via Childline authorities in Thalassery. Subsequently a complaint was lodged on March 18. The accused BJP leader who is a local school teacher had allegedly abused the victim multiple times between January and February 2020.
The case has also triggered protests from political parties and other groups as the police had failed to arrest the accused even 4 weeks after a case was registered. Finally, on April 15, the accused was arrested following which the case was handed over to the CB-CID on April 28.