Lucknow: A judge of a Lucknow Court has been suspended by the Allahabad High Court for granting bail to rape-accused Samajwadi Party Leader and former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati.

The 49-year-old leader, accused of raping a woman and attempting to rape her minor daughter, was granted bail by special judge of POCSO court Om Prakash Mishra on Tuesday. The bail was challenged by the Yogi-Adityanath-led state government in the High Court.

Putting the bail on hold “until further orders” on Friday, Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale said, “I may however observe that the manner in which the learned judge has shown the haste in releasing the accused on bail ignoring the nature of offence allegedly committed by the respondent accused and the fact that the crime came to be registered against these accused by virtue of the order of the Supreme Court dated 17/2/2017.I have my reservations about the bonafides/intention of the learned judge who is about to retire on 30/4/2017.”

Gayatri Prajapati was arrested in state capital Lucknow last month after absconding for over two weeks; he went missing in the middle of campaigning for the UP assembly election after the Supreme Court ordered the state police to file a case against him on the allegation of a woman that the minister had, along with six other men, gang-raped her and attempted to rape her 16-year-old daughter in October.

All the six other people named by the police in the case have already been arrested. They include two of the minister’s close aides and a security guard.

The senior Samajwadi Party leader lost the assembly election from Amethi, the constituency he had won last time.