The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to grant anticipatory bail to the daughter and son of suspended Delhi government officer Premoday Khakha in a case of alleged sexual assault of a minor girl by the arrested official.
“I have dismissed application at this stage,” said Justice Saurabh Banerjee.
The official’s son and daughter, accused of abetting the crime, had approached the high court last week seeking pre-arrest bail in the case after they failed to secure the relief from trial court.
Khakha has allegedly raped a minor girl several times between November 2020 and January 2021, and is presently in judicial custody.
The minor was the daughter of a person known to the accused, the police had said. His wife Seema Rani, who is accused of giving the girl medicine to terminate her pregnancy, is also in judicial custody. The couple was arrested after the survivor recorded her statement before a magistrate at a hospital.
A case has been registered under provisions of the POCSO Act and Indian Penal Code sections 376(2)(f) (being a relative, guardian or teacher of, or a person in a position of trust or authority towards the woman, commits rape on such woman) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to outrage the modesty of a woman), police said.
IPC sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 313 (causing miscarriage without woman’s consent) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) have also been invoked in the case, police said.
