PUNE: The Bombay high court has rejected the bail plea of an Army lance naik who, despite being married, posed as an eligible bachelor on a matrimonial site and sexually exploited a woman on marriage promise last year.The lance naik was arrested on June 7 by the Mahabaleshwar police in Satara district. He had also threatened to post obscene photographs of the woman on social media when she refused to continue with their relationship on learning that he was married and had a seven-year-old son.The Army lance naik has been posted at Jalandhar cantonment since 2016. “The element of deceit on the inception (of the crime) is writ large on the face of the record. Although he is a married man and father of a seven-year-old son, he had posed as an eligible bachelor,” the HC bench of Justice Sadhana Jadhav said, while referring to the police investigations so far.“...the police had seized the record of Hotel Vishwashanti, wherein it is shown that he was allotted room no. 206. His Aadhaar card is on record. All this record shows that he had been with the complainant-woman to Hotel Vishwashanti,” the bench observed.“The investigating officer (IO) has also recorded the statement of the wife of the (bail) applicant. The leave record of the applicant is also on record. The IO has collected the information from Jeevansathi.com, wherein it is shown that the applicant is a prospective eligible bachelor. He has shown his occupation as a government servant and marital status as ‘never married’. The annual income is shown as Rs 4 lakh to 5 lakh and it is posted by him,” the bench observed, adding, “Since the investigation is in progress, no case for bail is made out.”A sessions court in Satara had rejected his anticipatory bail plea on May 25, following which he was arrested for offences under Sections 376 (rape), 420 (cheating), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66-D (impersonation and cheating using communication device and computer resource) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The sessions court on July 3 also rejected his regular bail plea after arrest.He then moved the high court where his lawyer argued that there was a delay in lodging the first information report (FIR) as the complainant-woman did not approach the police even after learning about the (bail) applicant’s marital status.The court observed, “It appears that initially the complainant did not wish to approach the police station. However, she has specifically stated in the FIR that he continued to solicit sexual favour and only upon refusal, he threatened her with dire consequences and, therefore, she was constrained to approach the police station.”

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