HC disbelieves rape victim's version, acquits convict

Disbelieving the version of a rape victim on the basis of her conduct, the Bombay High Court has acquitted a 56-year-old man by setting aside the verdict of a lower court which had sent him to jail two years ago.
In this case, the rape victim had alleged that she was confined to a cattle-shed for more than 48 hours by the accused who raped her for two consecutive days.
However, the High Court observed that from the evidence it appeared that the victim had remained there voluntarily for more than 48 hours before escaping on the third day although she could have escaped earlier in a similar way.

"The conduct of rape victim does not permit me to place reliance on her evidence. Though conviction for the offence of rape is permissible to be based on sole testimony of the prosecutrix, it is equally necessary to be borne in mind that in such a case the conduct of prosecutrix is of great importance and court has to be careful while examining evidence in such cases," Judge M L Tahilyani recently noted.
The Judge noted that withholding of evidence of three important witnesses in the trial and the conduct of the rape victim had made the case of prosecution "highly doubtful".

"In my considered opinion, the evidence of the prosecutrix (victim) is not reliable. It was absolutely unsafe on the part of the trial judge to base conviction of the appellant on the evidence of such unreliable witness. In the result, the appeal succeeds," the Judge noted.
Accordingly, the Court acquitted Ramdas Rahate, a resident of Buldana district of Maharashtra of charges of rape, criminal intimidation, voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful confinement. He was ordered to be released from jail immediately if not required in any other case.
The prosecutrix and accused belonged to the same village and knew each other. It was alleged that on December 3, 2010, the accused took the victim to a cattle-shed on the pretext of taking her to meet a friend.