Court frees man of rape charge

A man has been acquitted of raping a divorcee on the pretext of marriage as the woman retracted her complaint, with a Delhi court raising questions on the veracity of rape cases in the present day situation.
The court freed the man, a native of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, saying there was no material on record to show that the accused had been raping the woman for the past one year under the false promise of marriage.
It also took note of the woman's statement that she had married the accused and their physical relations were with her consent.
While acquitting the man, Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma said "in this case, the accused has been acquitted of the charge of rape after trial as the prosecutrix retracted and turned hostile."

"In the circumstances, such a person, an acquitted accused, who has remained in custody for a considerable period during investigation and trial and who has been acquitted honorably after the woman has deposed that he has not raped her and she had physical relations with him with her free consent, should he now be addressed as a rape case survivor?
"This leaves us with much to ponder about the present day situation of the veracity of the rape cases," the court said.

It said there was a need to decide whether a person acquitted of the rape charge should be addressed as a "rape case survivor" like the victims in such cases.

The court while acquitting the man of the charges of raping and cheating the woman, who is the mother of a girl child, also said the evidence of the prosecution was neither reliable nor believable or trustworthy.
According to the prosecution, a case was lodged at Patel Nagar Police Station on January 7 this year, on the allegation that the man had been raping the woman repeatedly at his two residences in Baljeet Nagar and Vikas Puri here on a false promise to marry her.