In a case involving an alleged sexual assault of a young girl, the wife of suspended Delhi government official Premoday Khakha was denied default bail by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
A 16-year-old girl is allegedly the victim of multiple rapes by Mr. Khakha, the Deputy Director of the Women and Child Development Department, between 2020 and 2021. Seema Rani, his wife, is accused of giving the minor survivor medication to end her pregnancy.
A bench consisting of Justices C.T. Ravi Kumar and S.V.N. Bhatti declined to intervene in the Delhi High Court’s decision from February 26 that denied the Mr. Khakha couple’s bail requests. The trial court had previously turned down the plea for statutory bail, dismissing the argument that the filed charge sheet was the result of an insufficient investigation. Mr. Khakha and his spouse are still under court supervision.
But in January of this year, the highest court noted that Mr. Khakha’s son and daughter had joined the investigation and granted them anticipatory bail.
A police source had said that Mr Khakha kept on raping the minor daughter of his friend for months, during which his wife also allegedly assisted him. “As his wife also aided him in the act and did not report the matter to the police, we have added Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) in the FIR against his wife,” the police source had said.
“The most shocking part is that when the victim got pregnant, she was threatened with dire consequences by the accused. When the accused narrated the matter to his wife, instead of helping the victim, the woman sent her son to buy abortion pills, which she gave to the victim,” the source had said.
A case was registered under the relevant Sections of the Pocso Act and the Indian Penal Code against the accused.
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