SC stays Allahabad HC order granting interim bail to ex-minister Gayatri Prajapati in gangrape case

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed an Allahabad High Court order granting two months interim bail to former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati on medical grounds in connection with a gangrape case registered against him.

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed an Allahabad High Court order granting two months interim bail to former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati on medical grounds in connection with a gangrape case registered against him. A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, also issued notice to Prajapati on a plea filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against the High Court order.

The Allahabad High Court, while taking into account his medical condition confirmed by the medical status report, had granted two-month interim bail to Prajapati on September 3. Prajapati is under trial in connection with a gangrape case and has been in jail since March 2017.

The case was registered against Prajapati in 2017 at Lucknow's Gautampalli police station after a Chitrakoot-based woman alleged that Prajapati and six of his aides gangraped her and attempted to outrage the modesty of her minor daughter when he was a minister of the state government. Initially, the Uttar Pradesh Police had allegedly refused to register an FIR against Prajapati.

Thereafter, the woman had approached the Supreme Court and had sought the court's direction for lodging an FIR. After the order of the top court, an FIR was registered against Prajapati under charges of gangrape and sexual harassment. The woman had later withdrawn her statement by filing an application in the special MP-MLA court in Prayagraj in 2019. She retracted her statement in the court saying that the Prajapati did not rape her but two of his aides did.

Prajapati, however, has maintained that he had been falsely implicated in the present case. (ANI)

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