Bizman convicted for molesting minor actor granted bail

The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday granted bail to businessman Vikas Sachdev, who was convicted by a special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso)

The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday granted bail to businessman Vikas Sachdev, who was convicted by a special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) court in January for molesting a Bollywood actor on board a flight.

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The actor was a minor at the time of the incident, which occurred on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai in December 2017.

A bench of justice Prithviraj Chavan, while hearing 41-year-old Sachdev’s appeal against the conviction, was informed by advocate Aniket Nikam that the court had erred in concluding that his client intentionally molested the actor. Nikam said that on the day of the incident, the actor did not lodge any complaint with the crew and was smiling at the time of disembarking the aircraft. He also informed the court that during the trial, the court did not get the accused identified by the actor. The Pocso court, while convicting Sachdev and sentencing him to three years of imprisonment, had suspended the sentence for three months to allow Sachdev to appeal against the conviction in the HC. The appeal was filed in February.

While allowing the appeal, Chavan held that as it would be some time before the appeal was heard by HC, Sachdev’s sentence was being suspended and he was being granted bail on a personal bond of ₹25,000 with two sureties. The court also put a condition that Sachdev would not travel out of the city without informing the Dindoshi sessions court.

In response to Nikam’s submission that the actor was smiling at the time of disembarking, the court observed, “There is no straitjacket formula on how [someone] would behave or react in such a situation. There is no mathematics.”