Apex Court Stays Bail Granted To Murugha Mutt Pontiff Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru In Rape Case; Directs Expedition Of Trial

The Father of one of the victims has filed the present Special Leave Petition assailing the correctness of the order passed by the Karnataka High Court which granted bail to the Mutt Pontiff/Accused.

The Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed, “Having considered the submissions and perused the material on record, we are prima facie of the view that in order to ensure a fair trial not only to the accused but also to the victims, it would be in the interest of justice that the respondent no. 3 may remain in custody during the time the witnesses of fact are examined… The impugned order granting bail to the respondent no. 3 shall remain in abeyance or, in other words, the effect and operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed. The period of stay will be initially for a period of four months from today, which may be extended for a further period of two months if required…Respondent no. 3 will surrender within a week from today before the Trial Court.”

Senior Advocates P B Suresh and S Nagamuthu appeared for the Petitioner and Senior Advocates Shailesh Madiyal, Sidharth Luthra and AAG Avishkar Singhvi appeared for the Respondents.

The Counsel for the Petitioner submitted that the Accused is an influential person and there is a likelihood that he may adversely influence the witnesses and victims who belong to an oppressed class and weaker section of the society. The State of Karnataka has also supported the submission.

The Court also highlighted that the High Court in another writ petition has quashed and sustained certain charges against the Accused. The charges which have been quashed are the following five charges i.e. Sections 3 and 7 of Religious Institution Prevention of Misuse Act, 1988, Sections 3(1)(w)(i)(ii), 3(2)(v)(v-a) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, Gang rape under Section 376DA of the IPC; and Destruction of evidence under Section 201 of the IPC. The remaining three charges which have been sustained are, Section 376(2)(n) of the IPC; Section 376(3) of the IPC; and Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012.

The Supreme Court further directed, “The Trial Court forthwith will frame the charges afresh in the light of the order dated 11th March, 2024 passed by the High Court referred to above within a week from the date the Regular Officer joins the Special Court at Chitradurga… The Trial Court, after framing the charges, will proceed to conduct the trial as expeditiously as possible and if necessary, on day to day basis and ensure that the witnesses of fact which the prosecution wishes to produce are examined within four months… Trial Court will observe the conduct of the parties and if it finds that if any of the parties are unnecessarily trying to delay the trial, it shall make a note of the same and forward it to this Court.”

The Advocates-on-record were also directed by the Court to erase/redact the names of the victims wherever they have occurred in the records.

Accordingly, the matter is now listed on July, 16, 2024.

Cause Title: H Ekanthaiah v. The State of Karnataka and Ors.

Appearances:

Petitioner: Senior Advocates P B Suresh and S Nagamuthu, Advocates Chaitanya, M P Parthiban, Aparna Bhat, Sughosh Subramanyam, Sanskruti Samal, Kartik Pant, Shubhanshu Gupta, Shashank Chaturvedi and Karishma Maria.