The Kerala High Court has dismissed the outrageous plea filed by rape convict Catholic priest Robin Vadakkumchery, who asked to be let out on bail so that he can “marry the survivor.” The court has dismissed the plea filed by the rape convict stating that there is no merit in the plea.
Dismissing the plea, Justice Sunil Thomas stated that granting the plea would be like giving judicial approval for the marriage, reports Mahir Haneef of the Times of India.
It was in last July that Catholic priest Robin, who has been convicted by a POCSO court for 20 years in prison for raping and impregnating a minor girl, had moved the Kerala High Court with an outrageous plea that he should be granted bail so that he may “marry the survivor” and “take care of the child born to her.”
Dismissing the plea, the High Court has said that no compromise can be done nor can a lenient view be accepted in matters related to sexual offences. The court reportedly cited the trial court’s finding that the survivor was a minor during the time of the assault, stating that it still remains and that granting bail to the priest and allowing them to get married would be like giving it legal sanctity.
It was in 2016 that the survivor, a 16-year-old girl studying in Class 11 in a church-backed school in Kannur where Robin was the manager, was sexually assaulted by him. She gave birth to a child in February 2017. Initially, the accused and the church had immensely pressurised the family of the survivor and had even forced her father to confess that he was the one who raped and impregnated his daughter. But later, the survivor’s family alleged that were pressurised and threatened by the Church. DNA tests later conducted had also concluded that Robin was the father of the child. During the hearing, the court had declared the survivor hostile, after she claimed in court that she had attained the age of consent. The survivor, then an adult in 2018, had told the court that she was ready to marry Father Robin and raise the child together. However, the court convicted the Catholic priest after observing that the survivor was a minor at the time of the crime.
After he was convicted, in March 2019, the Vatican dismissed the priesthood of Robin Vadakkumchery.
Following this, after a year of being convicted, he moved the High Court with a bail plea. The prosecution had vehemently opposed the priest’s plea in court. “We cannot encourage such suggestions because every rape convict will tell they want to marry the survivor,” Public Prosecutor Suman Chakravarti had told TNM.