A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act court judge was suspended on Saturday for granting bail to Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati (pictured above) in a rape case, reported ANI. A departmental inquiry has also been ordered against OP Mishra. Prajapati and two of his accomplices had been granted bail on April 25.

The suspension order comes a day after the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court stayed the bail granted to Prajapati. The former minister had been arrested on March 15 for allegedly gangraping a 35-year-old woman and molesting her minor daughter in 2014.

Prajapati had maintained that he was innocent. “This is a conspiracy to malign me,” he had said after his arrest. He had been absconding after the Supreme Court had directed an FIR against him on February 17. A lookout notice and a non-bailable warrant had been issued against him, and the police had also seized his passport.

On March 7, two of Prajapati’s aides had been arrested in Noida near Jewar on the Yamuna Expressway, while his security guard Chandrapal had been picked up on March 6 near the Police Lines area of Lucknow.