Guwahati High Court through an order passed on August 13, Friday, granted bail to 21 years old Utsav Kadam – a student at IIT-Guwahati who allegedly raped a fellow IIT student, who was arrested on April 3, 2021.
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HC called the accused and the victim as “state’s future assets” while passing the order granting bail to Utsav Kadam. The penal headed by Justice Amit Borthakur while addressing the court stated,
“As the investigation in the case is completed and both the informant/victim girl and the accused are the state’s future assets being talented students pursuing technical courses at the I.I.T., Guwahati, who are young in the age group of 19 to 21 years only and further, they are being hailed from two different states, continuation of detention of the accused in the interest of trial of the case, if charges are framed, may not be necessary”. (Quoted the Print)
As per the FIR filed by the victim, a chemical engineering student at IIT-Guwahati, she was “lured” by the accused under the pretext of discussing her responsibilities as the joint secretary of the college’s finance and economics club on the night of March 28, 2021. She further alleged that the accused rendered her intoxicated by “forcibly administering alcohol” and later “raped” her.
The victim gained consciousness at 5 a.m. the next morning in the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital. After forensic examination and the required medical care, the victim was discharged and shifted to the campus medical ward.
The patient had arrived in a “serious condition” and it seemed to be a “serious case of sexual assault”, A senior doctor at GMCH said while speaking to The Indian Express.
The petitioner’s lawyer, KN Choudhry, stated the accused was a “great student” and that the “investigation has already been done.” He went on to say that there was “no likelihood” of him “jumping the course of justice in any way” and that longer incarceration could “harm his great academic pursuit.”
However, Advocate Sumitra Sama and additional public prosecutor Das, who appeared on behalf of the victim, have strongly opposed giving bail “in such a terrible offence, which is against the society.” “The trial of the case is bound to be hampered, which may occasion grievous injustice to the victim,” Das said if bail was granted to the defendants.
The order has received backlash from a number of Twitter users and other social media accounts with people seeing the same as “disgraceful”, a danger to “hope” and terming the accused as a “liability to society”.
