Bail Rejected for Man Accused of Taking 13-Year-Old to Surat & Marrying Her

New Delhi: A court has denied bail to a 25-year-old man accused of abducting a 13-year-old girl from Delhi, taking her to Surat, and then forcibly marrying her.Additional sessions judge Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi said a minor’s consent has “absolutely no legal efficacy or validity” in such grave offences.

It observed that the minor victim stayed with the accused in Surat between Feb 17 and 26 and described the allegations as part of a “deeply disturbing factual matrix,” warranting his continued custody.The case arose from a complaint by the girl’s father, who reported that the 13-year-old left their Neb Sarai home on Feb 17 for her mother’s workplace but never reached there, nor returned. During investigation, police found out that the accused, Mohit Thakur of Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, had visited the victim’s neighbourhood for an event and allegedly taken her with him.

On Feb 22, the father submitted a photograph received from Thakur’s mobile number that showed the girl wearing sindoor and a mangalsutra.Call detail records revealed that Thakur and the girl travelled to Surat on Feb 17, where his location could be tracked till Feb 23. After the two were traced and produced before police, the girl disclosed that “she was compelled by the applicant to marry him.”Though the defence relied on the victim’s statement before a magistrate, in which she said she had travelled to Surat “voluntarily” and explicitly denied being subjected to any forced marriage or wrongful act, the court rejected the argument.

“While the learned counsel for the applicant has vigorously canvassed the argument that the minor victim in her Section 183 BNSS statement claimed to have travelled to Surat voluntarily, it is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that the consent or willingness of a minor child holds absolutely no legal efficacy or validity in such grave offences,” the court noted.The judge also relied on photographs recovered from the applicant’s mobile phone. He said these provided “formidable corroborative digital evidence directly linking the applicant to the alleged forced child marriage and exploitation.”The court dismissed the man’s bail application, calling the crime “heinous”.