Court acquits man accused of raping widow as she turns hostile

A man accused of repeatedly raping a widow has been acquitted by a Delhi court after the alleged victim turned hostile and said that she had registered a false case against him.
The special fast track court, constituted to deal with cases of sexual offences, let off Delhi-resident Mahinder Singh Dahiya, saying the complainant had admitted that she had filed the case after she was threatened by her lawyer.
"The woman has not deposed an iota of evidence of her being raped at all. She has not even mentioned the word 'rape' in her evidence nor has deposed anything incriminating against Mahinder Singh Dahiya.... He is hereby acquitted of the charge under sections 376 (rape), 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC," Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma said.

According to the police, Mahinder had allegedly raped the woman between August 2012 to December last year and had also taken her obscene pictures after giving her laced tea which had made her unconscious.
It claimed that the accused had also threatened her that if she disclosed it to anyone, he would defame her by showing her pictures to her family and other people.
During the trial, the woman told the court that she knew Mahinder for the last 5-6 years and he used to help her financially.

She also told the court that she had met her lawyer in the train while coming to Delhi and he filed a complaint on her behalf. Later, she was threatened by him that if she did not give the statement as per his instructions, she would be implicated in a false criminal case.

She was declared hostile and during her cross-examination by the public prosecutor, the woman denied that Mahinder had raped her.
"It is clear that the evidence of the prosecution is neither reliable nor believable and is not trustworthy and the prosecution has failed to establish rape, intoxication and threat. The evidence of the woman makes it highly improbable that such an incident ever took place," the court said.
During the trial, the court did not record the statement of the accused as nothing incriminating against him had come against him during the evidence.