Mumbai: Sessions Court Grants Bail To 48-Year-Old POCSO Accused, Citing No Prior Criminal Record

Mumbai: Holding that the accused, arrested in a stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act (POCSOA) case, has no other criminal antecedents other than this crime, the session’s court has granted bail to 48 year old Sunil Kale.

However, even though the court has passed the order in his favor, he still remains behind bars, as he has no one at his end who would help him pursue seeking his bail. However, the NGO ‘Dard-se-Humdard tak’, who has helped him seek bail, might plead with the court to help them with some solution in order to move out of jail.

Kale was arrested by the Mankhurd police in January 2024 in an alleged case of raping a 12-year-old girl while she was playing in the building corridor. As per the prosecution’s case, when the child’s grandmother realized that she was not back at home, she called up her daughter-in-law, who rushed back home from her work.

The mother searched her all over, but could not find the child, however, she found that, when all the doors of the building were open, only Kale’s door was shut. Upon shouting out the child’s name, Kale opened the door, and the panicked mother found the child sitting in a corner in Kale’s house. The child, in her statement, informed the court and the police that ‘Kale-Kaka’ had called her to his house and had lured her with chocolates.

However, the victim initially refused it, but he forced the child into his room and allegedly raped her. Accordingly, a case was registered against Kale. The victim,’s statement says, “Kale-Kaka had done wrong with her.”

Advocate Prakash Salsingekar, the president of the NGO, said, “Our team of young lawyers had visited the Arthur Road Jail to provide legal aid for the needy prisoners, when we came across the accused. He said that he was innocent and had been wrongly implicated in the case, as they had booked him because of previous enmity. Further, the police have failed to explain the delay in lodging the FIR in the case. Also, there is no eyewitness in the case. Thus, based on these grounds, we were successful in seeking bail.”

The court, after hearing the arguments, has upheld that, looking at the evidence in the case, prima facie, there is a case against the accused, but the fact that the accused has no previous criminal antecedents, makes it a ground for the court to grant bail.

The court, in its order, has further held that though the accused and the victim stay in the same building, he is refrained from contacting the victim or prosecution’s witness and also has prevented him from tampering with the evidence.

When asked by advocate Salsingekar about the release of the accused, he said, “Since the accused do not have anyone on his end, we will have to plead with the court to help us with some solution, so that the accused can be released from jail on bail. Or else we will have to ask the court to allow it to approach the bank so that he can process the bail amounts and fulfil his bail requirements.

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