POCSO court rejects Gayatri's discharge application

A POCSO court today rejected the discharge application of former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati in connection with a gang rape case, declining to give him a clean chit in the case.
Passing the order, special POCSO judge Uma Shanker Sharma said that charge sheet was filed against him along with other co-accused persons.
The judge said charges have been framed against all the accused, including the ex-minister, as there was prima facie evidence to make them stand on trial and as such the order of framing charges against the accused cannot be reviewed under the CrPC.
Filing the application on September 12 on behalf of Gayatri, his lawyer had pleaded that the FIR in the case had been lodged after three years and that no offence from the evidence collected during the probe was made out under POCSO Act.

The application hence demanded that Gayatri should be given clean chit in the case.
Public Prosecutor M K Singh opposed the plea on the ground that the application was not maintainable because charges were already framed against him and other accused.

The court had reserved its order which it delivered today.
Holding that the application was not maintainable at this stage, the court turned down Gayatri's plea.
A Chitrakoot woman had lodged an FIR against the ex- minister and his accomplices with Gautampalli police station in Lucknow after the Supreme Court's rebuke to the state police during the Akhilesh Yadav regime for not registering the case.

After the probe, the police had filed charge sheet against Gayatri and others under the charges of gangrape and POCSO Act.
Meanwhile, the special court fixed September 21 as the next date of hearing on the second bail plea of Gayatri.
The high court had earlier cancelled his already allowed bail plea smelling foul in the process of granting the bail by the previous judge of the special court who retired from service just a day after allowing the bail.