Champawat rape case: HC seeks state response on bail plea

Dehradun: Uttarakhand high court (HC), while hearing the bail plea of Anand Singh Mehra, who was arrested on charges of conspiring in the alleged gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in Champawat on the night of May 5, directed the state govt to file its response. The case was heard by a single-judge bench of Justice Ashish Naithani.Mehra’s bail application was earlier rejected by a lower court, which he challenged in the HC. During the hearing, the court took cognisance of the legal aspects of the case, particularly that the police registered multiple FIRs regarding the same chain of events, and issued notice to the state, directing it to submit a detailed written objection on this issue.According to the case details, on May 5, the girl from Champawat went to attend a wedding ceremony in a neighbouring village. She was later found without clothes near a milk dairy, with her hands and feet bound. Her father lodged a formal complaint on May 6.Police initially suspected the involvement of Puran Rawat, Vinod Rawat and Naveen Rawat. However, medical examinations later confirmed that no rape or physical coercion took place against the girl. Further investigation showed that Kamal Rawat and his female friend, Arjita Rai, conspired to fabricate the incident and portray it as a gang-rape. They were arrested, and during interrogation, the name of Anand Singh Mehra surfaced as a co-conspirator, following which police arrested him.A case was registered against the petitioner under various sections of the Pocso Act, and under section 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, among other serious charges. Mehra was lodged in jail under judicial custody since May 13.During the hearing, the defence counsel argued that the police, acting under political and administrative pressure and with malicious intent, distorted the facts of a single incident to register multiple FIRs solely to frame the petitioner, which violated established legal principles. The defence counsel contended that the narrative of a “pre-planned conspiracy” and the rape case, as fabricated by the prosecution, was baseless and politically motivated.The counsel said the petitioner was an active social worker in the region who raised his voice on social media and public platforms regarding the search for a missing girl and local security arrangements. It was argued that the petitioner was falsely implicated in a counter-case through misuse of the administrative machinery due to these public-interest activities and a long-standing political rivalry stemming from the local gram pradhan elections.Taking into account the gravity of the matter and these legal anomalies, the HC granted the state time to file a response and scheduled the next hearing for June 15.