Man who absconded for 30 years moves SC for bail

A man, who absconded for 30 years in a case pertaining to kidnapping of a minor girl for marriage, has now approached the Supreme Court for bail.

He was arrested in June this year in the case registered with Mundgod police in Uttara Kannada district in 1987.
 
A bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao issued notice to the Karnataka government on a petition filed by Madappa alias Madu. The court sought response from the state within four weeks on his plea, challenging a high court order of July 27 that declined him the bail.
 
Madappa hailed from Gopinathpur of Kollegal taluk in Chamarajanagar district. He visited his relative in Uttara Kannada district in 1987. He stayed there for 10-12 days and allegedly enticed away minor daughter of a neighbour to his village at Gopinathapur. A case under Section 366A (kidnapping a minor daughter for marriage) of the Indian Penal Code was registered in the Kollegal police station.
 
He was apprehended and the girl was also found. As the trial began, he was released on bail. But during the trial, he jumped bail and remained untraceable for 30 years. The case was transferred from Kollegal to the Mundgod police station due to jurisdiction. The police finally in June 2017 caught him from Prakasam district in Andhra Pradesh.
 
In his petition, Madappa, who is now 58, claimed the reason for his non-appearance before the trial court was that he never received any summons. Among other grounds, he claimed the police have then recorded statements of witnesses, who said the girl was 18 year at the time of the incident, so no offence was made out.
 
The high court had, however, rejected his plea for bail, noticing that the trial has been kept pending because of his absence for a prolonged period of 30 years. It said that there is no guarantee that he would appear before the trial court if again released on bail.
DH News Service