The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday granted bail to businessman, Vikas Sachdev (41), who was convicted to a three-year jail term by a Special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) court in January for molesting a Bollywood actor on board a domestic flight.
The actor was a minor at the time of the incident, which occurred on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai in December 2017.
A bench of justice Prithviraj Chavan, while hearing Sachdev’s plea against the conviction, was informed by advocate Aniket Nikam that the court had erred in concluding that his client intentionally molested the actor. Nikam cited that on the day of the incident, the actor did not lodge any complaint with the crew and was smiling at the time of disembarking from the aircraft. He also informed the court that during the trial, the court did not get the accused identified by the actor. The Pocso court, while convicting Sachdev and sentencing him to a three-year prison term, had suspended the sentence for three months to allow Sachdev to appeal against the conviction in the Bombay HC. The appeal was filed last month. While allowing the appeal, Chavan held that as it would be some time before the appeal was heard by court, Sachdev’s sentence was being suspended and he was being granted bail on a personal bond of ~25,000 with two sureties. The court also put a condition that Sachdev would not travel out of Mumbai without informing the Dindoshi sessions court.
In response to Nikam’s submission that the actor had not lodged a complaint with the crew, the court observed, “There is no straitjacket formula on how woman would behave or react in such a situation. There is no mathematics.” With regards to Nikam’s claim that it was an inadvertent touch, justice Chavan noted, “It is a natural gift, a touch, a look, a male will not understand. However, a female would know the intentions.”
