High Court sets aside 20-year jail term, orders retrial in stepfather rape case

The Bombay High Court has denied bail to a man accused of killing his one-month-old granddaughter in 2023, citing the alleged reason as the family's preference for a male child. The court underscored that even after 80 years of independence, people in India still have a preference for boy children, describing the case as a "classic example" of a girl child being killed due to family not wanting a second daughter.

Justice M M Nerlikar emphasized that the incident came to light when an ASHA worker reported the matter to the police, but the family members did not inform the police themselves. The court found that the family cremated the child hurriedly and noted that the postmortem revealed the cause of death as asphyxia due to drowning. The man's counsel argued that there was no evidence against him, while the prosecutor stated that the offence was heinous and the grandfather was present at the scene, having special knowledge of the child's death. The court rejected the bail application.