The Bombay High Court recently allowed a young man to be released from jail after he underwent half of his sentence for sexually assaulting a minor.
A single Bench of Justice P.D. Naik was hearing a criminal appeal filed by Sarvan Rajbhar who was convicted under section 10 (punishment for aggravated sexual assault) of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The special court sent him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years in December 2019. He was on bail during the trial, however, was taken into custody the day of pronouncement of judgment when he was 19-years-old. He is currently lodged at Kolhapur Central Prison.
The assistant public prosecutor Arfan Sait informed the court that Rajbhar was in custody for two years, 10 months and 15 days. The remission of his sentence completed by him is three years, six months and 24 days.
The court noted, "The applicant (Rajbhar) has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment of five years and has undergone substantial part of sentence. He has good grounds to challenge the judgment as he was 19-years-old at the time of the incident."
The court suspended his sentence and directed the Superintendent of Kolhapur central jail to release him on a bail bond of ₹20,000. The bail conditions included attending trial court once in six months on first Saturday of the month till the end of the disposal of the appeal. The court added if there were two consecutive defaults in attending trial court, the prosecution is at liberty to cancel his bail.
