Kerala High Court Grants Pre-Arrest Bail To Former Chief Airport Officer In Sexual Assault Case

The Kerala High Court on Wednesday granted anticipatory bail to former Chief Airport Officer (CAO) of the Trivandrum International Airport, Giri Madhusudana Rao in the case where he was accused of raping a lady staff working under him.Justice P. Gopinath granted the pre-arrest bail considering the age of the petitioner and his ailments."I agree with the Public Prosecutor that the allegations are of serious nature, but the age of the petitioner and his medical conditions should be taken into consideration...I am therefore of the view that the petitioner can be granted anticipatory bail." A woman had come forward with rape allegations against Rao alleging that he seduced her to come over to his flat and thereby engaged in sexual intercourse without her consent on January 4, 2022.Following this, he was suspended pending inquiry by the Adani Group after it received the complaint from the woman. However, in his application, the petitioner had claimed that he was innocent of the allegations levelled against him.Advocate Sasthamangalam S. Ajithkumar appearing for the petitioner had argued that even if there was any sexual association between the petitioner and the de facto complainant, they were in a consensual relationship. He added that it was when the petitioner turned down the woman's demand for a huge amount of money to settle certain liability of hers, that she registered the crime raising several allegations against him. The main argument raised by Rao was that although the woman's case was that rape was committed on January 4 2022, the WhatsApp conversation between them up to January 14 indicates that even after the date of the alleged incident, they were in a cordial and friendly relationship. Rao's counsel submitted that he was ready to co-operate with the investigation and that he is a senior citizen suffering from various diseases such as high blood pressure, chronic diabetes and high sensitive CRP reading of 70.0 fg/l which suggest that he is highly prone to heart diseases.It was asserted that his custody was not required for the investigation of the case. However, the Public Prosecutor vehemently opposed the grant of bail on several counts, mostly citing that the petitioner had misused his position of CAO and practically forced the complainant to enter into a sexual relationship with him. It was added that for a proper investigation, the petitioner's custody is absolutely essential and that the actual relationship between the parties can only be ascertained after a thorough investigation. Notably, the Prosecutor pointed out that the transcripts of WhatsApp conversation between them placed on record was an edited version that does not contain most messages sent by the petitioner.On this ground, he argued that a person who places an edited version of conversion was not entitled to the discretionary relief of anticipatory bail. The Court agreed with the Prosecutor in this regard. However, upon being informed by the petitioner that the chats have been backed up and all chats up to January 11 can be recovered from cloud storage, the Judge was convinced that it was a fit case to be granted pre-arrest bail. "It was not proper for the petitioner to place an edited version of the WhatsApp conversion on record. However, the counsel submits that the entire conversation between the petitioner and the de facto complainant has been backed up and can be recovered by the prosecution as available in cloud storage," the Court noted. While allowing the application, the Single Bench also recalled that it is settled law by the Apex Court decision in Sushila Aggarwal & Ors v State of NCT of Delhi that limited custody is sufficient to fulfil the provisions of Section 27 of Indian Evidence Act, in the event of recovery of an article.The pe-arrest bail was granted with a condition that the petitioner, although currently placed under suspension, shall not enter the workplace until the filing of the final report. Case Title: Giri Madhusudana Rao v. State of Kerala

Kerala High Court Grants Pre-Arrest Bail To Former Chief Airport Officer In Sexual Assault Case

Hannah M Varghese

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