A court here today held in-camera hearing on thebail application of a French diplomat, arrested on charges of raping hisfour-year old daughter, and posted it to July 23 for orders.
During the 40-minute long in-camera proceedings held by FastTrack Court Judge G R Patil counsel for Pascal Mazurier, Deputy Head of Chanceryin the Consulate of France here, claimed diplomatic immunity for the accused,sources said.
Besides Pascal's counsel Mahesh, Public Prosecutor PRavindra and the Investigating Officer (IO) the Assistant Commissioner ofPolice (ACP) Devaraj submitted their arguments during the proceedings.
Earlier, the Judge accepted a plea by the PP that as per theSupreme Court direction in case of sexual abuse of minors, proceedings shouldbe conducted in camera as the victim is a girl child.
The IO objected to granting bail to the accused puttingforth three new grounds and further sought time till the police got theirclarifications on the DNA test report from the Forensic Science Laboratory(FSL) here.
The court also directed the police and the prosecution tosubmit the clarification report as early as possible.
On July 9, counsel for the accused had filed additionalgrounds in the bail application stating there was a "mismatch"between the samples of the accused and the victim as per the DNA test reportwhich he produced before the court.
A magisterial court on July 3 had extended by 14 days thejudicial custody of Mazurier, arrested on June 19 on the basis of a complaintfiled by his Indian wife Suja Jones, a native of Kerala, alleging that he hadraped their daughter.