{"id":303688,"date":"2018-10-03T07:09:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T07:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=303688"},"modified":"2018-10-03T07:09:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T07:09:40","slug":"kerala-high-court-rejects-bishop-franco-mulakkals-bail-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/kerala-high-court-rejects-bishop-franco-mulakkals-bail-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerala High Court rejects Bishop Franco Mulakkal\u2019s bail application"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-302862 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/bishop-franco-300x227.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"398\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/bishop-franco-300x227.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/bishop-franco-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/bishop-franco-556x420.jpg 556w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/bishop-franco.jpg 585w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 398px) 100vw, 398px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Kerala High Court on Wednesday rejected the bail application of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, the Catholic bishop, who was arrested on charges of raping a nun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In his bail petition, Mulakkal said that the allegations levelled by the nun were \u201cwholly fabricated and cooked up only to inflict vengeance\u201d, for the action he took against the nun on a separate complaint.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Mulakkal had argued that the nun was inimical towards him since she was removed from the post of Mother Superior.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">However, the court rejected the plea on the grounds that there is apparent evidence against the bishop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The court added that the allegations against the bishop are serious and Mulakkal occupies a high position in the church that he can influence witnesses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Mulakkal, who heads the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar, Punjab, is the first bishop in the country to be arrested on rape charges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He will remain in the police custody till October 6.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Kerala High Court on Wednesday rejected the bail application of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, the Catholic bishop, who was arrested on charges of raping a nun. In his bail petition, Mulakkal said that the allegations levelled by the nun were \u201cwholly fabricated and cooked up only to inflict vengeance\u201d, for the action he took against [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":302862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2196,2072,2014],"tags":[5338,466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303691,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303688\/revisions\/303691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/302862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}