JUDGMENT :

NEERJA K. KALSON, J.

1. The present petition has been filed under Section 483 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanita, 2023 seeking grant of regular bail to the petitioner in case bearing FIR No. 0151 dated 03.07.2019, under Section 363, 366-A, 506, 120-B of IPC, 1860 (now Sections 137(2), 96, 351 and 61(2) of BNS) and Section 376(2) (now Sections 64/65 BNS 2023) and Section 4 of POCSO Act, 2012 (added later on), registered at Police Station Tandan, District Hoshiarpur (Annexure P-1).

2. The case set up in the FIR in question (as set out in the present petition by the petitioner) is as follows:-

“Statement of xxxx son of xxxx resident of village xxxxx police station Tanda Distt Hosiarpur aged about 44 years stated that I am resident of aforementioned address. That ethnically I belong to village xxxx, xxxxx and we came to village Tahli 28/30 years ago and started residing here and here only I have blessed with 3 daughters and 2 sons. My two elder daughters are married and third daughter xxxx whose age is about 16 years And her D.O.B is 06.02.2003 who is after passing 10th standard, after 2017 was doing household work and sewing work. I and my family members do labour work to earn our livelihood and we have permanently settled in our "pakka house" in village Tahli. My daughter was having her own mobile phone which she used in her sewing work. About one month ago my elder daughter xxxxx with her children came from her in-laws house to our house. That my daughter xxxxx received messages on her mobile phone from someone and my elder daughter xxxxx asked xxxxx about these messages. She replied to her that these messages are of Tejender Singh @ Joti S/O Nanak Singh R/O village Tahli is having friendship from last 5-6 months and he frequently messages her. My daughter xxxxx had a conversation with Tejender Sungh @ Joti and made him understand that her younger sister xxxxx is too young and not to continue any friendship with her and nor send her message to which Tejender Singh @ Joti told to my elder daughter daughter xxxxxx that in future he would neither make any contact with xxxxx nor messages will be sent to her. Thereafter on 26.06.2019 when me and my family returned from labour work at about 10:00 hours we saw that our house was locked and our daughter xxxxx was also not present there. We searched around our village but we could neither find her nor any clue about her. All the day was spent in searching her but we could not find her. We searched her for whole the day but we could not find her on that night from our known of village Baholi from whom family members we have taken the place of making our house from their relative of Italy Gurnam Singh called at our house that your daughter xxxxx went to our daughter house at village Baholi who after spending some time and calling to someone on phone after that she went away from the house from village Baholi and when we tried to know about the number from their daughter that mobile no xxxxxxx this mobile no belongs to our village boy named Tajinder Singh@ Joti. When we came to know about this fact our whole family went to Tajinder Singh house but they did not tell us.”

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner has been in custody since 09.02.2026 i.e. for a period 01 month and 11 days. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner has been falsely implicated in the aforementioned FIR and has been in custody since 09.02.2026. It is further contended that the statement of the prosecutrix was recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C., wherein she did not utter even a single word against the petitioner, thereby casting serious doubt on the allegations levelled in the present case. Learned counsel further submits that the complainant, i.e., the father of the prosecutrix/respondent No. 2, has no objection to the release of the petitioner and does not wish to pursue the aforementioned FIR any further. It is also submitted that the petitioner had s