HC quashes rape case as girl says she married accused

The Bombay High Court has quashed a rape case after the victim took a stand that she had married the accused and was now happily staying with him.
The ruling was delivered by a bench headed by Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode which last week set aside a rape complaint filed against a city resident by his girl friend.
The boy had filed a petition in the High Court seeking quashing of FIR dated February 18, 2014, at Khar police station for offences of alleged rape and cheating.
Counsel for the petitioner Mahesh Vaswani submitted that the girl and the boy had a love affair and the complaint was filed by the former due to some misunderstanding. Now, both are happily married and were staying together, he argued.

The girl, who was also present in the court, said she had no objection to the quashing of the complaint filed by her as she had married the petitioner and was staying with him. Her lawyers Latika Nevrekar and Dharni Nagda also filed an affidavit making the same submission.
The judges noted, "We are otherwise satisfied that the offence punishable under Sections 376 (rape) and 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code is not made out, even if the allegations made in the complaint are accepted at its face value."
"Respondent No 2 (the victim) was 22 years old when she had an affair with the petitioner and she had given consent for having physical relations with the petitioner. Under these circumstances the petition is allowed and the complaint filed by her is quashed and set aside," said the judges.