New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (April 11) expressed concern about posters that were put up in Madhya Pradesh welcoming a rape accused who had been released on bail, reading ‘Bhaiya is back’.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Hima Kohli was told about the posters, according to LiveLaw, while hearing the complainant’s petition to cancel the accused’s bail.
“What are you celebrating after the bail? This says there was a hoarding which says ‘bhaiya is back’. What is this hoarding about?” Justice Kohli asked the accused’s counsel. The counsel responded that it was put up during a local body election.
“There’s a hoarding, what is this Bhaiya is Back? On what occasion you put the hoarding?” CJI Ramana responded. To that, the accused’s counsel responded that it had probably been put up after the accused was granted bail.
“Ask your bhaiya to be careful this week,” the chief justice said, posting the matter for next Monday.
Shubhang Gontia, the accused, is an ABVP member, according to The Quint.
The complainant’s petitioner had said during the hearing that the accused was granted bail after spending just 45 days in judicial custody, without taking into consideration other factors like the accused’s antecedents or his family’s influence.
The allegation against the accused is that he had sex with the complainant for three years under the pretence that he will marry her. The Madhya Pradesh high court had granted the accused bail, saying that this was not the kind of case in which the accused had to be kept in custody through the trial.
The accused had said in the high court that his relationship with the complainant was consensual, and both of them agreed upon being physically intimate.