The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed the bail application of a man in a sexual assault case. Applicant Mohammad Maroof had been arrested by the Tipu Sultan police for allegedly molesting an underage girl with a mental disability.
According to the prosecution, the applicant who had a toy shop took the 11-year-old girl to his house, and molested her and attempted to rape her. The applicant’s counsel said his client is innocent, and has been falsely implicated in this case due to enmity, adding that no such incident had taken place.
He said that the victim’s statement has not been recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), while the FIR has been lodged with an unexplained delay of three days.
He also said the complainant has no objection if the court grants bail to the applicant, adding that the fact has been endorsed by the complainant’s counsel.
However, the additional prosecutor general opposed granting the applicant bail on the grounds that the offence is non-compoundable, so the complainant’s no objection cannot justify granting the applicant bail. After hearing the counsel’s arguments, and perusing the record, a single SHC bench headed by Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan said the case record shows that the complainant, in his statement recorded under Section 154 of the CrPC, has directly nominated the applicant in this case.
The court said that not only has the applicant/accused been named in the case but his specific role has also been comprehensively described, adding that the three-day delay does not entitle the applicant to bail in a case where the victim is a minor with a disability.
The bench said that as regards the complainant not having an objection, it is a well-settled principle in criminal law that such affidavits have no legal weight in non-compoundable offences, as these offences are considered crimes against society as a whole and cannot be resolved through private settlement.
The court said that the mere fact that the victim has not been examined does not appear to be a worthy consideration on the grounds of which bail should be granted. The bench said that reasonable grounds exist that tentatively connect the applicant with the commission of the offence.
The SHC dismissed the bail application, saying that the observations recorded in the order are purely tentative in nature and should in no way prejudice the independent mind of the trial court during the course of the trial.
Published in News Daily on 03-March-2025.