Special POCSO court turns down ex-UP Minister Gayatri Prajapati's second bail plea

Gayatri Prajapati, the embattled ex-minister in then Akhilesh Yadav government, faced fresh trouble as the Special POCSO Court turned down his second bail plea on Wednesday.

Prajapati who is facing rape charges along with others had applied for bail in the Allahabad High Court last week. .

The Special POCSO Judge Justice Uma Shanker Sharma rejected his bail application and said that charges against him were of serious nature and the accused facing trial should not be allowed bail as he may influence the process.

Earlier, the Allahabad High Court had also rejected his bail application.

A Special Investigation team had filed a chargesheet against Prajapati and six others for gangraping a Chitrakoot woman and her minor daughter in March 2017 under sections 354 (A), 376, 511 of the IPC and ¾ of the POCSO Act.

A close associate of Samajwadi Party patriarch Muayam Singh Yadav, the FIR against Prajapti and others were lodged following intervention of the Supreme Court.

He was arrested by the Lucknow police on March 15.

The former mining minister in the Akhilesh Yadav Cabinet, Prajapati had allegedly paid Rs 10 crore to a judge through two senior lawyers to seek release from the jail.

Then Special POCSO Judge OP Mishra had granted him bail on April.

Taking serious note of the alleged payoff, the judge was later suspended by Chief Justice Allahabad High Court.