On Thursday, the Supreme Court declined to approve default bail for the wife of suspended Delhi government official Premoday Khakha. She is implicated in a case concerning the alleged sexual assault of a minor girl.

Mr. Khakha, who served as Deputy Director in the Women and Child Development Department, is accused of raping a 16-year-old girl multiple times between 2020 and 2021, and his wife, Seema Rani, reportedly gave the minor survivor medicine to terminate her pregnancy.

A bench of Justices C.T. Ravi Kumar and S.V.N. Bhatti refused to interfere with the February 26 decision of the Delhi High Court rejecting the bail pleas filed by the Mr Khakha couple.

Earlier, the trial court had denied the plea for statutory bail, rejecting the contention that the charge sheet filed was based on an incomplete investigation. Both Mr Khakha and his wife remain under judicial custody.

This year, in January, the Supreme Court granted anticipatory bail to Mr. Khakha's daughter and son, noting that the duo had joined the investigation.

A police source had said that Mr Khakha kept on raping the minor daughter of his friend for months, during which his wife also allegedly assisted him. "As his wife also aided him in the act and did not report the matter to the police, we have added Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) in the FIR against his wife," the police source had said.

"The most shocking part is that when the victim got pregnant, she was threatened with dire consequences by the accused. When the accused narrated the matter to his wife, instead of helping the victim, the woman sent her son to buy abortion pills, which she gave to the victim," the source had said.