Noticing that medical report had stated that “there was no penetrative sexual assault” on the two victims, the High Court of Karnataka on Friday granted bail to A.J. Paramashivaiah, secretary of Jagadguru Murugarajendra (JM) Vidhyapeetha, who is one of the accused in the sexual assault case against Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, head of JM Bruhan Mutt, Chitradurga.
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Justice Shivashankar Amarannavar passed the order while allowing an appeal filed by Paramashivaiah (59), who is arraigned as accused number 3 in the chargesheet. He had questioned the December 2022 order passed by the special court for Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act cases in Chitradurga, which had declined to grant bail to him.
“Section 5(l) punishable under Section 6 of the POCSO Act is for repeated aggravated penetrative sexual assault. As the hymen of the victim girls are intact, at this stage, it cannot be said that there was an aggravated penetrative sexual assault on the victim girls. The said aspect can be ascertained at the trial,” the High Court noted.
Though the punishment for abetting the accused for the offence of aggravated penetrative sexual assault is the same provided for the offence, the High Court said the charge on Paramashivaiah for abetting the seer, who is the accused number 1, to commit the offence of aggravated penetrative sexual assault is a matter of trial.
Merely because Paramashivaiah is an influential person, he cannot be kept in custody till the conclusion of the trial, the High Court.